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THE STONING OF CHRIST
By A. Prentice
PART TWO
PREPARATIONS FOR THE STONING
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Scripture references are to the King James
(Authorised) Version
ʻMany good works have I shewed you from my Father;
for which of these works do ye stone me?ʼʼ
– John 10: 32 –
Recap: In the previous instalment we saw how a
mob confronted Jesus as He strolled through Solomon's Porch, adjoining Herod's
Temple. In a blatant attempt to entrap Him, the crowd demanded from Jesus a
clear confession that He was indeed the Messiah. Jesus instead directed their
attention to all the good works He had performed in plain sight, the best answer
to their question. He contrasted their truculence and bombast with the trust and
meekness of His followers. His sheep, Jesus asserted, were held safe in the
protecting grasp of the Heavenly Father's hand, and no one could snatch them
out. Then He uttered the words which ignited the fury of the crowd: I and
[the] Father are one (John 10: 30).
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IN THE AFFECTIONS of Jehovah, Jesus was as the pupil of His eye, any threat to which
evokes a swift, reflexive defence (Zech. 2: 8). ‘This is my beloved Son’, He
declares, ‘hear him’ (Mark 9: 7). This paternal love was extended to those whom
Christ called to form His Church. To the immediate disciples, who represented
the Church at its embryonic stage, Jesus proclaims, ‘the Father Himself loveth
you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God’ (John
16: 27). This is a remarkable thing to be loved personally by the
Almighty! In this we see the Father’s affections for His only-begotten Son
radiating out to His Son’s followers ‘as the Father hath loved me, so have I
loved you’ (John 15: 9).
Chapter 17 of John’s epistle records the Saviour’s high-priestly prayer a holy conversation with the Father. In v. 10 Jesus says, ‘all mine are thine, and thine are mine’. But this sanctified love went far beyond the small band of believers of that time and place: it would encompass all those of subsequent generations who came to believe in Jesus. And this one-ness which Jesus shared with the Father would be the ultimate goal for the entire Church, a Body comprised of many members but melded into a single entity. This is underscored in vs. 20-23, 26 (parallel expressions italicised):
20. Neither pray
I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their
word; 21. That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I
in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that
thou hast sent me. 22. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given
them; that they may be one, even as we are one: 23. I in them,
and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the
world may know that thou has sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved
me. . . . 26. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it:
that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in
them, and I in them.
The Apostle Paul in later years enunciates this unity in Eph. 4: 4-6, and incidentally echoes the sentiments expressed by Christ in the John 17 passage quoted above:
4. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; 5.One Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6.One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all [emphasis added].
One-ness in the sense of inseparable unity is alluded to in other texts. The Greek word translated ʻoneʼ, italicised in the following three references, is the same root Greek word as in John 10: 30:
Rom. 12
5. [W]e, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.
1 Cor. 6
16. Know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith [God, shall be one flesh. 17. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.
1 Cor. 10
17. For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.
That Jesus and the Father
are one in Divine essence that is, the Father is God and Jesus is God is contradicted by a number of Scripture texts which underscore the
separateness of Father and Son. Examples follow, with italics added for
emphasis:
John 8: 16-19, 29,
38
16. [M]y judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me. 17. It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. 18. I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me [the second witness] beareth witness of me. 19 . . . Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also. . . . 29. [H]e that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please Him.
As one despatched with a message, Jesus received a commission outside of Himself. Only mental gymnastics can evade the common-sense implication of Sender and Sent.
38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father [the Devil].
In this verse, the parallel is between two separate sons of two separate
fathers.
Back
Off!
One-ness of
spirit, love and mission is the glory and beauty of Christ and His Church as
Head is to Body, indivisible, and merged into a singularity of purpose: the
salvation of the world. Little wonder, then, that Jesus castigates the vulgar
mob which accosts Him in Solomon's Porch. ʻYe believe me notʼ, He tells them,
ʻbecause you are not of my sheepʼ (John 10: 26, 27). To the believers only does
Christ give eternal life. ʻAnd they shall not perish, neither shall any man
pluck them out of my handʼ (v. 28). He then guarantees the safety and security
of His people, not principally in His own name, but in the name of His
Father who, He declares, ʻis greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them
out of my Father's hand’. And on this both Father and Son are united without a
sliver of difference between them. Whatever the Son does, He does only at the
instigation of, and with the full support of, the Father. Jesus repeatedly
asserts that He is sent by the Father, for ʻmy Father is greater than
Iʼ (John 14: 28).
This Nuisance
Nazarene
Jesus posed a threat to the orthodox Jewish establishment. The people's fascination with Him diverted attention from the authority of the rabbinate, undermining its hold over the populace. If only He could be disposed of, this cursed movement would collapse and His followers would scatter to the wind. This encounter in Solomon's Porch was but one in which the authorities threatened Jesus’ life, employing the crowd as a cat's paw to incriminate Him. No accusation was too outrageous if it served to ruin the reputation of this upstart preacher.
Jesus does not fear what they may do to Him but He warns them to leave His followers alone. ʻYou may threaten themʼ, He says in effect, ʻbut you will never destroy this flock. My Father your God is superior to all and He underwrites their safety. You cannot separate them from Me, for I cannot be separated from my Father. In tandem we present a solid front. For I am one with the Father, and the Father is one with Me.ʼ Put another way, He that persecutes me, persecutes the Father. This alliance of Son with Father undergirds the security of the faithful and vouchsafes the future of the Church, for
Glorious things of thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God;
He whose
Word cannot be broken
Formed thee for his own abode.
On the Rock of ages
founded,
What can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation’s walls
surrounded,
Thou may’st smile at all thy foes.
– John Newton (1725-1807)
Back At The
Porch
John
10
30 I and [the] Father are one. 31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. 32 Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of these works do ye stone me?
Like many a tyrant bent on forging an empire, Satan's battle plan is one of divide and rule. The clergy of Judaea may have been bent on destroying Jesus, but behind their machinations lay the cunning of Satan. He had already attempted to drive a wedge between Jesus and the Father. ʻTurn these stones into breadʼ, ʻThrow yourself off the roof of the Templeʼ, ʻBow down to meʼ, etc., etc. (Luke 4: 1-13). However, he could not succeed because Jesus and God are one, the will of the Son the duplicate of the Father's will.
But Satan would not cannot give up. After the failure of the wilderness tempting, Luke 4: 13 notes pointedly that the Devil departed from Jesus ʻfor a seasonʼ. He would return again and again, growing more desperate each time. If the Jewish authorities trembled at seeing their authority leach away, much more did Satan hiss and fume at the spectre of his ambitions going up in smoke the seed of the woman finally striking his head with a mortal blow (Gen. 3: 15). As surely as Satan was behind the treachery of Judas, entering ʻinto himʼ on that Passover night (John 13: 27), so was he goading the crowd in Solomon's Porch as they rummaged for missiles to hurl at the Saviour. Satan is the ʻgod [theos] of this worldʼ, and he will fight to the finish (2 Cor. 4: 4).
The
Trinity
Within this expression ʻthe Father and I are oneʼ resides the notion of two individuals: I and the Father, etc. For clarity, Jesus could perhaps have said, ʻI am the Fatherʼ or ʻthe Father is Meʼ. But this too would be unacceptable today from a strictly Trinitarian point of view, which asserts that Father and Son are two separate Persons in the Godhead.
For example, James R. White, in his book, The Forgotten Trinity (1998 edition), feels obliged in common with many other writers and speakers on this subject to defend the unity of the Godhead and yet opt for a distinction between Father and Son in those texts which clearly demand it. White offers a ʻbasic definitionʼ of the doctrine (p. 26):
Within the one Being that is God, there exists eternally three coequal and coeternal persons, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Later (p. 154), referencing John 3: 35 (ʻFather loves the Son . . .ʼ), he states:
The scriptural truth that the Father is not the Son, nor the Son the Spirit, is rather easily demonstrated. We begin with the fact that the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father actions incomprehensible outside of recognizing that the Father is a separate divine person from the Son . . . [emphasis added].
The dubious advantage to this approach is that it allows two contradictory notions to be equally true at the same time. Such is the mystery assigned to the doctrine of the Trinity that the apparent logic of the relevant biblical texts slips and slides around, denying the reader the solid ground of certainty, forcing the mind to take refuge in assumptions. Nonetheless, belief in the doctrine of the Trinity is judged by its proponents as essential to salvation, and they regard as lost heretics those who do not or cannot conscientiously accept it. Unfortunately, the doctrine clouds one's understanding of the ransom-sacrifice of Jesus the corresponding price paid for Adam, a transaction in which the true humanity (not the deity) of Jesus is a prerequisite.
Perhaps A Simpler
Statement?
If Jesus and Jehovah are one and the same in essence or nature, why didn't Jesus simply say, ʻI am Godʼ? Or, ʻI and the Father are one and the same Personʼ? And what should we make of His later statement to Mary Magdalene, after His resurrection, that ʻI ascend unto my Father and your Father; and to my God, and your Godʼ (John 20: 17)? Furthermore, addressing Jesus through prophecy, Psa. 45: 7 declares that because He loved righteousness, ʻGod, thy God, hath anointed theeʼ (compare Heb. 1: 8). As already noted, using a similar Greek construction as in John 10: 30, Jesus in John 17: 22 prays to the Father that the disciples may ʻbe one, even as we are oneʼ. The meaning in this latter instance is self-evident.
We have omitted from this discussion any mention of the Holy Spirit, the ostensibly equal and Third Person of the Trinity, but Jesus does not Himself raise the matter.
In the next instalment we will see whether Jesus and the crowd were operating at cross purposes. For our Lord's question in v. 32, ʻWhy do you stone me?ʼ is at variance with their accusation in v. 33, ʻYou make yourself Godʼ.
Continues
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Copyright January 2014 ukbiblestudents.co.uk
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