Category: Trinitarian Commentary

Hello everyone. It’s a late evening here. Faithful readers of the blog can easily guess why. That’s right. It was a Smallville night and we had a really great episode tonight with some great biblical imagery and the whole thing really raises a whole lot of questions. Questions mainly on moral systems. That is for another night though. 

I wish to thank Donald for his comment and let me state clearly also that I am not against anyone else doing further research. My blog is not supposed to be the end-all. I simply intend it to be something that gets people more informed and started on their own journeys. If you find something great that you think needs to be shared, feel free to share it here in the comments. Also, feel free to start your own blog. The world can be blessed by Christians blogging and I recommend the book that got me started on the journey. Hugh Hewitt’s book “Blog.”

For those who are just joining us, we’re going through the Bible wanting to come to a deeper understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. Tonight, we’re in the gospel of John. As the title indicates, we’re in John 7:33-36. Let’s look at the verses:

³³Jesus said, “I am with you for only a short time, and then I go to the one who sent me. ³⁴You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come.”

 ³⁵The Jews said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we cannot find him? Will he go where our people live scattered among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks? ³⁶What did he mean when he said, ‘You will look for me, but you will not find me,’ and ‘Where I am, you cannot come’?”

Jesus’s words follow on the order of the leaders to have him arrested. Thus, he starts speaking about his death which will lead to his resurrection and ascension and that he is going back to the Father. He does not meantion the Father here, but he has said earlier that the Father sent him. He also tells them that where he goes, they will not be able to find him. 

Some of the Jews thought of the Jews in the diaspora. When Babylon conquered Judah, the Jews were dispersed and many taken to Babylon. By the time of Christ, there were Jewish populations all throughout the Roman Empire. Alexandria was one of the noted cities with a heavy Jewish population. Yet Christ could not have meant that for any Jew could have traveled to a city in the empire and found Christ.

We know that he meant his Father. Why could they not find him? Because they were not of his flock. They did not know him and thus could not know the Father. It isn’t the loss of Jesus when people do not come to him. It is their loss. When the Jews try to destroy Jesus, they are only destroying their own hope. In killing him, people ultimately kill themselves.

Recently a saw a sign someone was carrying somewhere that said “If Jesus returns, kill him again.” Completely blasphemous, but such a person is being foolish and killing their own hope. They show the way the culture reacts to Jesus. In an odd way, it’s a rational one. Jesus has spoken of himself as the light that those in darkness do not come to lest their deeds be exposed.

You either accept the light or you dispose of it somehow.

Which are you going to do?

First off, I would like to thank Mikael for his comment on last night’s post. It has been said that to like what you do and know that it matters must be a source of great enjoyment. I simply love getting to speak about these matters and have people come and indicate to me that they get it. This is a most important topic also.

For those just joining us, we are going through the Bible and we’re in the New Testament now and the gospel of John. We are looking for understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity and looking at the way Jesus saw himself and the way those around him saw him. Tonight, we’re going to be in John 7:25-29. Let’s go to the text.

²⁵At that point some of the people of Jerusalem began to ask, “Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill? ²⁶Here he is, speaking publicly, and they are not saying a word to him. Have the authorities really concluded that he is the Christ? ²⁷But we know where this man is from; when the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from.” ²⁸Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, ²⁹but I know him because I am from him and he sent me.”

Already, there had been a plan set forth to kill Jesus. The leaders in power saw him as a threat and he could have been seen that way for a number of reasons. First off, there was the fear that people would want to make him a king and go off then and try to conquer Rome. While the Jews did not care for Rome, they also knew that they could not defeat it. But couldn’t Jesus do that if he was the Messiah? Why yes he could. But we saw back in John 5 that since Jesus healed a paralytic and told him to take up his mat and walk on the Sabbath, that since he instructed a man to “break the Sabbath”, then he could not be the Messiah.

The leaders would also want to protect themselves from the wrath of YHWH. Since this guy was such a lawbreaker, he would bring defilement to their land. YHWH had punished them in the past for following false prophets. They would not be punished again!

And of course, the usual reason of politics. They had their own power base to protect.

Yet the Jews in the audience have a struggle. They knew where he came from. When the Messiah comes, no one will know where he comes from. There are a number of points that need to be considered with this.

First, they saw Jesus as coming from Galilee, when he was really born in Bethlehem. Of course, the scribes of Herod in Matthew 2 knew the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. It could be that the Jews weren’t familiar with this passage, which I’m skeptical of, or they interpreted it differently, which is more likely, or even more so, they had the idea of when the Messiah comes AS Messiah, it wold be a sudden appearance by him.

Next, Jesus cries out and the word is quite emphatic to describe the action. This is an important point. Where Jesus is from is not just Bethlehem or even Galilee. It is from the Father. His identity is tied up with the Father and Jesus makes the remarkable claim that the Jews don’t know the Father. 

Christ also says he was sent by the Father pointing to his pre-existence. He both comes from the Father and is sent by the Father. He comes from the Father who is true. Therefore, Christ is true in what he says.

Tomorrow, we shall look at more of this discourse.

Hello everyone. I wish to thank Donald first off for the compliment to last night’s blog. I am an enjoyer of compliments and I believe that we not only don’t give them enough but we don’t thank people enough when they are given. The church is to be a group that encourages one another and this is one way we do that. For tonight, we are continuing the gospel of John and we will be looking at John 7:16-18 tonight. As usual, our goal is to come to a deeper understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity.

¹⁶Jesus answered, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me. ¹⁷If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. ¹⁸He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself, but he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him. 

Jesus says his teaching is not his own. It comes from the one who sent him. Isn’t this a strong argument against the Trinity?

Again, I must ask “How?”

A large part of our problem when we dialogue with some people is that we assume some things are problems when they really aren’t. They may be things that we don’t fully understand, but that is not the same as saying that they’re a problem for our worldview. 

If someone wants to assert that something is a problem, I would suggest looking at it from another point of view, and namely the opposite one. Let’s suppose that Christ had really said this:

“My teaching is entirely my own. It has nothing to do with the God who sent me.”

Not only would Trinitarianism have a problem, any idea that Jesus was a sinless person would have a problem as well as he is teaching something that does not come from God. As it is, Jesus at this point is saying that what he has is not something that he has made up. It is true because it came from God. Jesus is described in the Bible as a prophet also, and he is the prophet par excellence, and in being such, he would certainly give a message that was from God.

Jesus’s way to test it was to have people live it out. Jesus’s advice though is not true because it works. It works because it’s true. His teaching was the true fulfillment of the Law. Christ did not teach against it but rather he was its greatest teacher in that as he taught, he was showing people the real intent of the Law and how it was that God desired that they live.

Jesus then points out that if someone speaks on their own to gain honor, how can he be trusted? He could be making something up just to win favor for himself. (Keep in mind honor was huge in the ancient world. It mattered more than life itself.) However, if one came for the honor of another, he could be more easily trusted as it would cause shame for him from his audience and his patron both if he did not give a true message from the one who sent him. Jesus is saying that since he seeks the honor for the Father and not for himself, then that increases his credibility. 

As we go through this chapter, we will see more of Jesus’s teachings and come to a greater understanding of them.

Hello everyone. I hope you enjoyed the back-up article I put up yesterday. It was one that when I thought about turned out to be life changing. I still wish though that I could adhere to the principles for a long time that I often teach myself but too quickly if I learn a truth, I find I forget it on the applicational level and I must simply ask for your prayers in that area. (I could actually use your prayers regularly as the DeeperWaters blogger does have his own struggles.) Tonight, we will continue going through the book of John and studying the doctrine of the Trinity. We’re going to be in John 6 and reading verses 53-59.

⁵³Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. ⁵⁵For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. ⁵⁶Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. ⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. ⁵⁸This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.” ⁵⁹He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

I really don’t like to go into secondary issues. I am a Protestant, but I do hold that Catholics who believe in Christ as savior and Lord are my Christian brothers and sisters. However, this passage does affect our Trinitarian understanding and I’d like to demonstrate that. I also have no desire to lower the eucharist or Communion meal, but I honestly do not see Jesus speak about that and I think speaking about that here lowers what Jesus is really saying. Now you can use the Eucharist or Communion as a reminder of what he is saying here, but remember it is the reminder that reflects the ideal that is given in this passage.

Let’s look at the first four verses of this passage. I believe that what Jesus is getting at is to compare himself to the manna in the wilderness. Had the Israelites not had that, they would have died. It was what kept them going through the wilderness. The manna was their sustenance.

Christ is comparing himself to that and what is he saying? He must be our sustenance. He must be our life. Apart from him, we are dead. We can have no true life unless it is life in him. He must be that which sustains us through our wilderness. He must be that which we rely on throughout our lives.

Now I do see the Eucharist or the Communion as partially reminding us of that, but considering for many of our churches that’s hardly a full meal, I don’t think that’s the point. I believe those were established to remind us of the new covenant. They could be hinted at here, but they are not the topic. The Jews would not understand a Passover meal being spoken of here. They would have understood Christ as our sustenance. A lot of them didn’t agree of course, but they understood. (In fact, they didn’t agree because they did understand.)

Let’s look at verse 57. Jesus says that he lives because the Father lives. Is this going against the Trinity?

Again, I must ask, “How?”

In Trinitarian thought, Jesus is begotten of the Father eternally. The Father is begotten of no one nor does he proceed from anyone. If there is no Father, there is no Son to be begotten. Because there is a Father, there is the Son also. To say Jesus lives because of the Father does nothing to deny their interconnectedness. 

Considering Jesus’s life is from the Father then, he points to that as he is the conduit by which that life is transferred to us. Note that this was said in the synagogue of a major city. The message would have then been well known and as the text indicates later on, many left at this point and ceased to follow him.

Will you be one of them or will you agree with Peter? “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

I’ve had company over today and am thus really busy so for tonight, I’m putting up an article I’ve got in back-up on the Trinity that I’ve put up elsewhere on the web. Enjoy!

What one believes will ultimately affect their view of reality. Because I believe each key on my computer I hit will produce the letter I want, I have no hesitancy about pushing a button on my keyboard. Because I am on the top floor of my house and believe in the law of gravity and also believe that I am not Clark Kent, I am not going to jump out the window. Yet how many people say that they believe the Trinity and haven’t thought of any ramifications for it beyond “Well I have the right God so I’m going to Heaven and I can beat up Jehovah’s Witnesses when they come to the door.”

 

Let me state this clearly at the beginning. If you are a skeptic of the Trinity, this article is not directly for you. You could gain some insights into my thinking by reading it, but this article has mainly been written for the Trinitarian. This is a work by which I hope, you will begin to think of the Trinity. Too often, the church has been seen as possessing dead and lifeless doctrines from a dead and lifeless God. We believe that God exists, but do we believe that he is living?

 

I will contend that he is living and the Trinity touches all Christian doctrines and as an effect, when we have the vertical aspect of the Trinity in the proper position, the horizontal aspects of how we should live morally will fall into place. This will also benefit those of us who do deal with Arians, for if we have a personal commitment to the doctrine, we will not so easily be swayed from it. One could sway me from trusting the friend I’ve made yesterday, and don’t know much about, but you could not sway me from trusting the friend I’ve known for several years on a personal level.

 

The Trinity shows us that God, by his nature, is relational. When we look in the account of the bush in Exodus 3, we find that God describes himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This should not be glossed over, for there are many ways God could have described himself. He could have identified himself as the creator, the one who cast out Adam and Eve, the one who sent the flood, the one that blessed Abraham with a child in his old age, or the one who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. However, God points to the covenant relationship.

 

It is certainly a fair question to ask why God created mankind or even angels for that matter. To the Arians, we could ask why the first being God supposedly created (And this in the sense of bringing into existence that which was not in existence before. The quote of Arius was “There was a time when the Son was not.”) was created as a personal being as well. There are only two reasons that God would have created and that would have been either need or desire.

 

Now if we have it out of need, then we have a problem. When I was an undergraduate in college, my systematic theology (Or as I called it as the further writing will show on this class, systematic heresy) professor said that God created man because he needed someone to love. My professor was devoted to his faith, but I believe dreadfully lacking at this point.

If God creates out of need, then he is in fact, less than his creation. It is not then that creation depends on God for its existence, but that God depends on creation for his own as well. In effect, God would have been at the mercy of Jesus, the “first-created”. After all, if Jesus had rejected God and chosen to not love him, then what would God do?

One could say that God could destroy Jesus and then create another, but we would then have the situation where God treats people based on what they do instead of who they are. It’s worth noting that God never destroyed Lucifer when he rebelled, nor did he destroy any of the angels that rebelled with him. True, some of them have been locked away and are in punishment now, but that is a far cry from ceasing to exist.

 

In effect, God would only love if the creation loved him. However, we read in 1 John 4:19 that “We love because he first loved us.” But if the other view is true, then God would love because we first loved him. Let us be clear that whatever God does to a person, he does out of love. As hard as it may be for some to imagine, when God allows someone to go to Hell, that is still an act of love as he is honoring the choice of the individual.

 

The other option is that God created out of desire and here, we have the clue as to what love is. God created because in the Trinity, there was an everlasting relationship of love. Man was created so that he might come and join in the dance of love that has been going on for all eternity.

 

The kind of love this is that God has invited us into is the best kind there is. This love is one that seeks the best for the other above himself, the truly selfless love as is our example in Philippians 2. When we see the Father, he is glorifying the Son in the New Testament such as at the baptism or the Transfiguration. When we see the Son, he is pointing to the Father. When we see the Holy Spirit, he is almost inconspicuous for being so silent, for he is always pointing to both of them to give them the glory. No person of the Trinity seeks his own good above that of the others.

 

The best example I can think of would be sexuality. The most personal relationship we can have on Earth, is meant to be a mirror to lead us into the relationship that will take place in eternity. In the relationship, one has the three steps of revelation, followed by trust, and then fellowship.

 

I will have to say at this point that as a single man, I do not speak from personal experience on the sexual relationship, however, this can be seen as a benefit on my part. As most single guys who want to get married, it is a dream and desire of mine as well, but yet, one does not know necessarily why except that we have been designed to have that desire.

 

Should this be any shock to those of us who believe in Heaven, where we know that there are things there that we could never begin to imagine? We long for Heaven, and yet, we do not know exactly what it is about it that will be so wonderful, but we know that it will be wonderful. In the same way, the single man longs for his honeymoon not knowing why it will be wonderful exactly, but knowing that it will be.

 

In sexuality after all, the purpose is to be that each person is seeking the enjoyment of the other above themselves. As the maiden says in the Song of Solomon, “Thus, I have become in his eyes like one bringing contentment.” (Song of Solomon 8:10) A paraphrase would be that the maiden knows that she will bring joy and satisfaction to her lover when he beholds her beauty, and this even before the fellowship.

 

Hence, if one practices in pre-marital sex, one is not being a Trinitarian, as that is using the other to get your own joy instead of seeking the joy of the other. Furthermore, it is insisting that one gives trust before the revelation. This should also point out that sex is to be relational with two people. Any solitary act would be disallowed then.

 

Furthermore, if the act is supposed to be a mirror of the Trinity, and if the experience itself is to be a moment of Heaven, then could we not get a clue as to what heaven is? Heaven would become getting to fully experience the Trinity as the Trinity is. The main joy of Heaven will be in sharing in the life of God himself for all eternity.

 

If we are supposed to seek the good of others above ourselves in sexuality, then why not in all other things as well? The Trinity does not allow for anyone to be a loner. No person in the Trinity is to be classified as an individual as no person would exist apart from the existence of the others. While we value independence in America today, the lesson of the Trinity being a community itself, as was the view of the people at the time of the Bible, is interdependence.

 

Thus, each person in the body of Christ is to seek the benefit of the other above himself. They are to see themselves as part of a community. Each person will have to have established bonds of trust with others in the body working together. One cannot picture the Son acting without the Father. One should not picture a person acting separate from the body of Christ.

 

It has been said before that being is more accurately to be described as being in relationship to. This is how we would say the persons of the Trinity differ. They differ not in their nature but in their relationships to one another. Existing then means that one is involved in a relationship of some time. After all, it is not good for the man to be alone. (Genesis 2:18) Persons are never to be seen as a hindrance to Christianity but as the reason for Christianity.

 

We should also recognize the unique value of each person. The reason the Trinity can love the world is because the Trinity loves one person. If you cannot love one person, you will not be able to love the world. Let this be a reminder to us in the Great Commission as well that all need to hear the gospel. If we are to love the world, then surely we can love our neighbor next door.

 

We will love as well because we already have that flowing bond of love. The writings of John say over and over that we are to be known by our love. It is when we love one another, that we will be mirroring the relationship of the Trinity. It is when we follow Philippians 2, that we will be mirroring the relationship of the Trinity. To do otherwise is to profess Trinitarianism but live Arianism.

 

In closing, my plea to the church is to learn to think Trinity. Ponder the relationships of the persons within the Trinity. Think about their existence of their love that they have shared for all time. Think about how that love has overflowed in allowing you to exist and to grant you salvation. If you haven’t received salvation yet, consider this as an opportunity to be invited into the most perfect relationship of love for all time, one so awesome that it will take eternity to realize how awesome it is.

Hello Everyone. Our visit with the JWs went well, although we did have a surprise. There was only one JW who came. We had a really good talk and I believe it went well. I ask my readers to pray that God opens up the hearts of the JWs that my roommate and I are witnessing to and that he will also give us the knowledge that we need and also the wisdom to use it as we ought. In this field, it’s not enough to just have the knowledge. It also requires that you have the proper information on how and when to use it. It’s tempting to come out with the Trinitarian guns blazing, but that just won’t work. 

For now, let’s turn to the text. John 6:43-51:

⁴³“Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. ⁴⁴“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. ⁴⁵It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’^[d] Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. ⁴⁶No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. ⁴⁷I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. ⁴⁸I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. ⁵⁰But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. ⁵¹I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

Some of you might be wanting me to post my thoughts on the Calvinist/Arminian debate in this verse. Keep wanting. I wish to say that now because I want any reading through this section to know I try my best to avoid commenting on what I consider secondary issues. Deeper Waters is a blog that is interested in defending Mere Christianity. Perchance if this ministry ever broadens, that might change. For now, it is going to be Mere Christianity.

Jesus states that all who learn from the Father come to him. This fits in with the Trinitarian understanding as if you truly wish to know the Father, you will come to the Son. To refuse the Father is to refuse the Son and to refuse the Son is to refuse the Father. It’s a kind of all-or-nothing deal.

He also tells us that no one has seen the Father except the one who is from God. This brings us back to John 1:18. When the text says no one has seen God, it means no one. It does not say no man has seen God. This would mean that while the angels are in his presence, they never get to see him as he is. 

Only Christ can see the Father for he bears the nature of the Father. He is the only one who can truly know the Father in all that he is. For us to understand God, it has been said that we are practically fleas sitting on the backs of elephants.

Christ connects this with everlasting life. If we believe him, we have everlasting life. John has a constant emphasis on truth in his gospel so much so that Christ is said to be the truth in John 14:6. This could be in part to counter pre-Gnostic tendencies that were creeping up in the church.

He then compares himself to the manna in the wilderness. Those who ate of it died, but if anyone eats the bread that he gives, he will live forever.  What does this mean exactly? Since the next section focuses on that aspect, then it would be good to cover that when we get to it.

Which should be tomorrow’s blog. See you then!

We’re going through Scripture trying to come to a deeper understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. Right now, we’re in the New Testament and the book of John. Last time, we saw the feeding of the 5,000. Keep that story in mind and if you want to get your Bibles to see the surrounding context of John 6:35-40, which is our text for tonight, I not only invite that but encourage it. For now, let us look at the text:

 ³⁵Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. ³⁶But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. ³⁷All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. ³⁸For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. ³⁹And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. ⁴⁰For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

I wrote about the feeding of the 5,000 because not only is it in every gospel, and it is the only miracle that is apart from the resurrection, but because it is the background to this account. What happens here is because the feeding of the 5,000 took place and the people are looking to see if Jesus is the Messiah.

Now some of you might think that they were coming to make him a king. They were. There wasn’t really a distinction. After all, when the Messiah came, he would raise an army and go and deliver the Jews from Rome and restore Israel to the golden political age that they once had under David.

The Jews have asked about Moses providing bread and Jesus has just declared that he is that bread. This will be explained more when we get to another passage later on in this text, but for now, Jesus is declaring that he is like the bread in that while the bread kept them going physically in the wilderness, Jesus will keep them going spiritually.

The text also says Jesus has come down not to do his will but the will of him who sent him. He is speaking of the Father. What does this mean for Trinitarianism? Since Jesus is not doing his own will but that of the Father, does that mean he is not fully God?

What on Earth would make someone think that?

How could Jesus be the one who is fully God and yet not be doing the will of the Father? It would seem that if they were in such tight unity that the two would go together. Jesus does not have a rogue will where he goes against the Father. Naturally, I believe he had a human will of course, but that was one he submitted to the Father, like any good man would do.

The problem for anti-Trinitarians so often is they see this submission and assume that that refers to a lesser nature. When we get to a later text in the epistles, one even the Jehovah’s Witnesses use in “What Does The Bible Really Teach?”, we will find that this is not so. Those familiar with that book can look at the lesson on who Jesus is and see if they can figure out the argument. Hopefully, they will.

Submission only proves one thing. It proves the Son submitted to the Father. It does not speak of the nature of the Son, which is where the anti-Trinitarian must go.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Okay. Once again we are back to looking at the doctrine of the Trinity and the more I go through this, the more important I see the doctrine as. I am in a debate at the moment with someone who is saying that how we describe the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and their relationship doesn’t matter. It most certainly does! A non-Trinitarian concept is not just a different religion but a different God altogether. Right now, we are in the gospel of John and going through looking for clues to this wondrous doctrine and seeing how Jesus sees himelf. Today, we are going to be looking at the feeding of the 5,000.

This miracle is interesting as aside from the resurrection, it is the only miracle that is recorded in all four gospels. Not all record the feeding of the 4,000, including John himself, but all do record the feeding of the 5,000. It is John who adds the extra part on that tells us more about what made this event so amazing to the people.

Keep in mind that the people were looking for a prophet like Moses to be the Messiah. One miracle of Moses was that he was the one who God used to provide manna in the wilderness while the Israelites wandered for those forty years. Jesus is encountering now a crowd that has come to see him and is hungry and is asking his own disciples how they are to provide food. Philip tells him that eight months wages would not provide a single bite for everyone that is there. Philip looked straight at his wallet. Of course, can we really blame him? Christ wanted to reveal to Philip the enormity of the situation and if Philip’s accessment was correct, it was most certainly an enormous one.

However, one boy comes forward and he has a small offering with him. For all we know, it could have been lunch for him and his friends. It certainly would not be enough to feed 5,000, and that’s not counting women and children. However, Jesus does accept the offering and he prays over it and then has them be handed out to the crowd that is already waiting.

When Moses gave the manna, each man was to take as much as he needed. When Jesus feeds the 5,000, each man takes as much as he wants. This is something greater than the manna in the wilderness. God’s generosity is extending even more at this point. Each person there eats and they eat until they are satisfied. There are even leftovers. Christ has the disciples go and gather them and from the few barley loaves they gather twelve baskets full of remains.

It is at this point that the people realize the kind of person in their midst and they say that he is the prophet Moses spoke of. While they are correct, their problem is not their correct accessment of Jesus but their incorrect accessment of the Messiah. They were expecting a political leader who would break the bondage of Rome. They were reading their own time into the text. Christ did not come to set them free from Rome. He came to set them free instead from the greater prison of sin.

While we do see Christ’s miraculous ability to provide food here, the main reason for this passage being studied today is that it sets the stage for what comes next. Seeing as we’ve covered the walking on the water already, we will skip ahead instead to the next portion the next time we discuss the doctrine of the Trinity.

Hello again everyone. Today, we are going to be continuing our look at the doctrine of the Trinity in Scripture. We’re in the NT now and we’re in the book of John. Our goal has been throughout to try to see the self-understanding of Jesus and try to see the inter-relations that are going on between the three persons of the Trinity. The more I learn the doctrine of the Trinity, the more I am amazed with it and my recent encounter with Jehovah’s Witnesses, which will continue Saturday, left me in even more awe. 

Our text tonight is John 5:41-47.

⁴¹“I do not accept praise from men, ⁴²but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. ⁴³I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. ⁴⁴How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?

 ⁴⁵“But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. ⁴⁶If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. ⁴⁷But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”

Jesus does not accept the praise of men? How does this go with the Trinity. He is not talking about worship here. He is talking about rather the endorsement. He does not go to humans to get his credentials. He goes straight to God. Jesus did not go around seeking glory in the eyes of the crowd but rather in the eyes of God. 

This is what Christ condemns them on and let it be clear that Jesus was tough with his opponents. Where did we get this idea of gentle Jesus meek and mild? Look at the accusation he gives starting in verse 42! He’s talking to the Jews and telling them that he knows that they don’t have the love of God in them. 

In fact, he makes it as a knowledge claim! Look at these people! These were the ones following the Law of YHWH meticulously! They were studying the Scriptures as Christ himself acknowledged. They were living in defiance of a pagan empire and resisting all that was coming in from it! They had been willing to die in faithfulness to YHWH and Jesus says they don’t have the love of God in them?

We Christians must learn to take the words of Christ seriously even if we don’t like them at times. Some of us may feel our feathers ruffled a bit in our Politically Correct society. Jesus was not Politically Correct. My friend Ergun Caner once stated “If it’s politically correct, it’s probably biblically corrupt.” PC is a cancer killing our society as it kills truth. It does not allow real discussion of the issues because that could hurt someone’s feelings.

Christ looks at that generation of Jews and tells them that the love of God is not in them. Now this is not a charge against all Jews for all time, but just the ones that denied who Jesus is. The same could be said of any Gentile also who denies who Jesus is. No one should get special condemnation for being Jewish, but they don’t get special benefit at the cross either.

Jesus tells the Jews that they’re ready to accept anyone else in another name, but they don’t accept him. The implication is that if they believed the Father, they would believe him. They are looking to look good in the eyes of one another, but they are not seeking the praise of God. This must have been an amazing claim to the Jews listening at the time.

However, Jesus takes it further and says that he is not their accuser. Instead, their accuser is Moses. What he says is remarkable. First off, it implies that he knows that Moses wrote about him. It also implies that he knows what Moses will be doing on the last day. Finally, it implies that the listeners who paid so much attention to the Law did not believe what Moses wrote.

At this point I conclude with the thought of if we’ve really looked at Jesus and how he must have seemed to his contemporaries. Have we really considered these words or have we just read them from time to time without letting them reach us?

Hello everyone. The blog will be a little bit earlier tonight. The roommate and I are going out tonight due to the generosity of a friend of ours from church who is enabling us to go see a murder mystery play. Before we tackle that mystery, I shall write tonight about the mystery of the question of who the Son of Man is. We’re going through the New Testament now looking for clues of the Trinity and the self-understanding of Christ and right now, we’re in the gospel of John. Tonight, we’ll be looking at John 5:31-40.

³¹“If I testify about myself, my testimony is not valid. ³²There is another who testifies in my favor, and I know that his testimony about me is valid. ³³“You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. ³⁴Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved. ³⁵John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.

 ³⁶“I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me. ³⁷And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, ³⁸nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. ³⁹You diligently study^[c] the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, ⁴⁰yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

In the Jewish system, there was a legal requirement that a matter had to be settled by two witnesses. Thus, Jesus has made some extraordinary claims up to this point and he is going to be making his defense. Let’s keep that in mind. He wasn’t making self-abasing claims for which he would not need to call forth witnesses really. Witnesses would be called for extraordinary claims. Jesus has spoken much about himself, but why should the unbelieving audience take his words as is?

The first one is John the Baptist. Jesus says that the Baptist pointed to him but then says “Not that I accept human testimony.” This would indeed have to be a grandiose claim. Jesus is setting himself up in some way above humanity. Of course, he was fully human but he was not merely human.

He then points to the Father as testifying through the works that Jesus was doing. The miracles were not done just to attract a crowd. The miracles were done to point to the nature of the kingdom. He then says that the Father has testified of him and tells the Jews that they have never heard his voice or seen his form.

Implication? Christ has.

Do we really stop when we read the gospels to consider the claims that Christ is making and how unique they are? We’ve become so familiar with them that the story is just a story. Instead, it is the greatest story of all and should hold us in wonder. Consider what the incarnation means. God the Son, who needed nothing, knew no suffering, and already had an existence of complete joy, took on the human nature that you live with, though not with its sinfulness of course. He entered a world of suffering and pain and death and took upon himself the worst of it. Why? It cannot be need. It can only be want. John 3:16 does say it best. It’s because he loved the world.

Shame on us for not being in awe.

Yet there is another way the Father has spoken and that is in Scripture. Jesus tells them that they are diligently studying them for they think that by them, they have eternal life, yet the Scriptures testify of Christ and they do not come to him for eternal life.

Let’s consider this.

First off, Jesus is saying that the Bible talks about him. Again, either this claim is true or it’s totally false and Jesus would either be the ultimate deceiver or on a major ego-trip. Second, he claims to be the one who can give eternal life. He is greater than the Scriptures. Coming to them cannot give eternal life. Coming to him can.

Tomorrow, we shall close out this chapter.