Context for Truth

For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath. But He answered them, "My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working." (John 5:16-17)

According to the context of this passage it must be assumed that the Jews believed that Jesus was working on the Sabbath day in violation of some existing rules. In doing so they also were implying that Jesus must be a lawbreaker and therefore could not be right with God or He wouldn't be so out of sync with what religious people taught who had studied the Word of God far longer than Jesus had even been around.

But instead of quibbling over the definition of what constitutes work, Jesus instead begins to move here into more controversial matter by exposing even more of their prejudices. It would have done no good whatsoever to try to correct their misunderstandings about the meaning of the religious terms they were using when their fundamental picture of God was their core problem. When our context of how we believe God feels about us and relates to us is distorted, it does little good to try to tweak various details about how we do religion because all that knowledge doesn't make much sense unless our inner background beliefs about reality are first radically altered.

Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3)

So instead of arguing about the right or wrong way to keep the Sabbath holy or what work means, Jesus moved right to the core problem that all of us really must deal with – our view of God and our relationship to Him. By calling God His Father Jesus likely knew He would stir up even more intense problems for Himself than He was already experiencing but He did not try to obscure anything about what He knew to be true. He was not trying to stir up controversy just to be belligerent, but neither did He try to obscure the fact that His view of God was incompatible with the common beliefs of the religious people who were in control.

It is so easy to get caught up in arguments and debates about what we are allowed to do during Sabbath hours or what we think God views as sin. I have seen these debates all of my life and still hear them frequently whether they revolve around what is acceptable activities to have on the Sabbath or even over which day of the week is the true Sabbath. I am not implying in the least here that these things should be ignored or not important at all. That is certianly not the case. But what I am saying is that when we talk about these things outside of the far more important context of having a corrected view of God's character and the way that He relates to sinful human beings all of these debates become mute points even if they happen to arrive at correct conclusions based on infallible Scripture proof.

Instead of getting caught up in the never-ending debates that have gone on for centuries about what proper Sabbath observance should look like, Jesus instead goes right to the heart of our problem – our feelings and beliefs about our own personal relationship with God. By stating unequivocally that God was His dear Father and then going on to elaborate on that fact by talking about His intimate relationship with His Father, Jesus turns on a very bright light that begins to expose the dark nature of how all of us still feel about what God thinks about us.

Right at the beginning of this book John stated this issue very clearly as the context for the whole rest of this gospel.

In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. (John 1:4-5)

Jesus did not have any animosity toward these deluded religious leaders who resisted His love for them for so long. It is too easy to fall into a trap of thinking that these confrontations with the Jewish leaders provoked ill feelings on the part of Jesus or that He enjoyed sparring with them. But that is because we project our own confused ideas about God into these stories instead of seeing the real truth about how God feels about all of us. Jesus passionately loved these men just as much as He did every other sinner that He met. He loved them just as tenderly and passionately as He did the man He had just healed. But their reaction to His love was quite different than the response of faith that had been demonstrated in the life of this healed man and as a result they found themselves in constant tension and jealousy because they believed that He was out to compete for their influence and political power over the people.

But Jesus had no interest whatsoever in political power because He knew that politics was the counterfeit of God's system of government. Although He was respectful of human political structures He never got entangled in the least with any of their petty games. He left them to struggle and fight among themselves and focused His entire life and energy on revealing to all the real truth about how God feels about us. Some people responded by changing their minds about God and as a result were radically transformed in character themselves. Others persistently resisted the truth of Jesus' revelations about God's attitudes towards us and as a result found themselves at increasing odds with Jesus' life and testimony about His Father.

For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God. (John 5:18)

Was Jesus really breaking the Sabbath?

Was it wrong for Jesus to call God His own Father?

Was Jesus really trying to make Himself equal with God in the eyes of men?

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness... (Philippians 2:5-7 NRSV)

To imply that Jesus was somehow trying to introduce a new Sabbath by deliberately breaking the seventh-day Sabbath that He himself had given to mankind at creation is patently absurd even in the immediate context of this verse. In fact, that logic sides with the unbelief of the Jews that Jesus was confronting in this passage even though they supposed that they were trying to enforce observance of the true Sabbath. It is easy to be so focused on trying to argue that we know which day the real Sabbath comes on or argue about who has the best version of rules about how to keep it holy that, like these Jews in Christ's day we may find ourselves at serious odds with the picture of God that Jesus came to reveal so clearly.

If we have not caught a transforming glimpse of the true nature of Jesus and correspondingly what God is like as a result, all of our strenuous arguing and proof-texting and Bible studying will only accomplish getting us close and closer to treating Jesus the same way these Jews were treating Him. We will insist that those who are actually revealing the true characteristics of godlikeness are not in compliance with our Christian traditions or regulations and we will end up persecuting the very ones that are in fact representing God far more accurately to the world than we are.

I need to be very careful to apply this lesson to my own heart and not be blinded like these Jews of old by the same sort of self-righteous thinking that infected their religious profession. They were intent students of the Scripture and had invested years in meticulous education so they could know sound doctrine and could amass irrefutable arguments for 'the truth'. But they had failed to see with their hearts the most important thing about true religion and as a result were filled with emotions of hatred and murder against the very One who best reflected the character of the God they insisted that they served.

I see the same penchant in my own life, to resort to less than loving ways to impress truths upon others while failing to have a spirit reflective of how God treats me. When I catch myself doing this (or more like when the Spirit catches me and convicts me) I immediately realize that if I do not live in the peace and rest of God – that Sabbath kind of rest that God intends for me to experience all the time – then it matters little how 'right' I may be because the spirit that is coming from within me is neutralizing all the factual truths I may be trying to convey to someone else.

Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2 Corinthians 3:5-6 NRSV)

Father, I see this weakness all too often in my own spirit at times. It is so easy for me to become raw and defensive in the way I try to share what You are teaching me and I realize that by allowing that kind of spirit to infect me that I am misrepresenting You. Forgive me and heal me and fill me with Your Spirit so that others will see Your beauty flowing out of my life instead of my harshness or self-righteousness. Fill me with Your presence today and use me as a clean channel for others to see Your beauty and compassion and truth more compellingly.