Reflective Bible Study

Part way through His ministry, Jesus gets into a debate with some Pharisees over the validity of His ministry and the claims He was making. In this debate, which was one of the more strategic attempts of discrediting Jesus, the Pharisees challenge Jesus because He is only a single person making the claim, and in their court system, a case needed to be proven by at least two witnesses.

When facing this challenge, Jesus had plenty of options to choose from, but He decides to use His Father (i.e. God the Father) as His choice. Jesus tells the Pharisees, “I am one of the witnesses who speaks about myself, and the Father who sent me is the other witness.” (v. 18)

Perhaps the Pharisees were not expecting a clear answer like this, but not wanting to miss the chance to find someone else who may have been easier to discredit, they simply ask, “Where is your father?” (v. 19a)

While on the surface, their question sounds sincere, it is most likely a second level trap because if Jesus stated clearly that the Father who sent Him was God the Father, then the leaders would have had more reason to stone Him. If Jesus shared that His father was someone they could meet on earth, chances are high in my mind that these Pharisees would have used this information to find, discredit, and probably kill the “father” in question.

The response Jesus gives these religious debaters is simple while also incredibly profound. Jesus tells them, “You don’t know me or my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father, too.” (v. 19b)

In Jesus’ response, we are introduced or reminded that Jesus and God the Father share the same character, the same love, and the same focus. This means that both God the Father and Jesus love humanity equally and they are both overwhelmingly merciful when it comes to dealing with people who have sinned.

The response Jesus shares tells us that when we truly know Jesus, then we will also truly know God the Father and we will understand what He is like. It is easy to miss out on knowing Jesus and God. Every religious leader who held to their preconceived ideas about God, and specifically about the Messiah He would send, missed truly knowing Jesus. Those living during Jesus’ ministry on earth who let go of their preconceived ideas were able to know and experience who Jesus was – and accordingly, these people then knew who God the Father is and what He is like and were blessed as a result.

Those of us living today cannot travel to see Jesus like those living in the first century, but we do have four accurate records that describe in detail Jesus’ love, His character, and His sacrifice. If we let go of our preconceived ideas about Jesus and God the Father, and simply pray and read what the gospel writers share, we will begin to understand who God the Father truly is. Many in culture believe Jesus is nice while God is mean, but that belief runs completely opposite of Jesus’ message in this passage. If we know Jesus is loving, merciful, and kind, according to Jesus, we also know God the Father is loving, merciful, and kind as well!

Part way into Jesus’ ministry, John’s gospel records an unusual occasion where Jesus is alone with His brothers, and it appears as though the disciples are not there with Him. While it is possible that the disciples were there, my mind has always assumed that they were not, simply because of a phrase that Jesus’ brothers say.

John tells us that one reason Jesus’ brothers pressured Jesus to go up to Judea for the upcoming festival is so that Jesus’ disciples may see His works. Jesus’ brothers say, “Leave here and go into Judea, so that Your disciples also may see Your works which You are doing.” (v. 3)

It wouldn’t make much sense to say this if Jesus’ disciples were walking alongside Jesus and His brothers.

However, John opens this passage by giving us a reason Jesus did not want to travel to Judea. John tells us that, “Jesus was walking in Galilee, for He was unwilling to walk in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill Him.” (v. 1)

Seeing these two details so close together makes me wonder if Jesus’ brothers were trying to set Jesus up to turn Him in to the Jewish leaders. When we place these two details next to each other, we can easily see how someone could draw the conclusion that Jesus’ brothers had aligned themselves with the Jewish leaders.

However, Jesus’ brothers simply could have missed the point of Jesus’ ministry and the Messiah He came to be. The common view of the Messiah at that time was that God would send someone who would rally the Jews together and successfully kick the Romans out of their land. If Jesus’ brothers held to this view, their suggestions make sense because Judea would have the greatest number of Jews to rally together for this cause.

But in John’s opening verse, we see an interesting side of Jesus. Jesus has chosen to “retreat” to Galilee, where His ministry began and where His brothers likely lived because it was a safe distance from the Jewish leaders who were looking to kill Him.

So while Jesus’ brothers may have been trying to set Jesus up to turn Him in, or whether they simply misunderstood why Jesus came to planet Earth, Jesus demonstrates strategic caution in this passage, and He ultimately chooses to not travel to Judea with His brothers for the festival. This tells me that sometimes, we focus on making wise, strategic choices rather than overly depending on God to protect us while we blaze forward for Him.

Tucked away in this healing is a glimpse of what God is like. From all of Jesus’ healing, we can see a picture of God as loving, kind, serving, and helping those in need, but in this passage and in this healing, we get another piece of God’s character showed to us. This truth comes both from what is said in the gospel record and from what is not.

The event begins with ten lepers calling out to Jesus for healing. Jesus tells all ten to go show themselves to the priests, and they all begin running to see the priest. As they were going, they realized that they had been healed, and one turns back to thank Jesus personally. Jesus then makes the comment about how only one returned to give thanks and glory to God, “But the nine—where are they? Was no one found who returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner?” (Verse 17b-18)

Hidden in this healing is another picture of God. With these ten lepers, God was willing to heal them simply because they asked, regardless of whether they came back to thank Jesus. We can easily see this because 90% of them did not return, but the fact that they went and that they realized they were healed, and they would then be declared clean by the priest who would confirm the healing.

Jesus commends the former leper who returned to give thanks, but nowhere do we see that the healing was dependent on returning to give thanks. All ten former lepers had faith because they all chose to obey Jesus and go to the priest.

This brings me to the big thought for this post: God appreciates our thanks when He does things for us. He reaches out and heals us even when we don’t give thanks or recognize that it is Him working.

If you haven’t remembered to thank God today for something He has done (or is currently doing), now is a great moment to say “thank you” to Him.

During the night Jesus was betrayed and arrested, the gospel of John records the final time Jesus was able to freely share with the disciples prior to facing the events that would lead up to His death. In this conversation, Jesus makes a profound claim that everyone who calls himself or herself a Christian will have to resolve in his/her mind.

Early on in this conversation, Jesus tells the small group of disciples: “What I say isn’t said on my own. The Father who lives in me does these things.” (v. 10b)

This statement is powerful because Jesus is basically saying that everything He does, and every part of Himself is because of God the Father living inside of Him. If what Jesus is telling the disciples is true in this statement (which I believe is true), then this means that everyone who rejects, minimizes, discounts, ignores, or opposes Jesus is really opposing God the Father – even if they think they simply are rejecting a mere carpenter who lived long ago.

The reason this is so significant in my mind is that with this claim, Jesus basically removes Himself out of the equation and leaves people left with a picture of the God the Father. With this statement, either Jesus steps into being a lunatic, or He has shared an incredibly powerful truth that should frame every Christian’s frame of reference.

But which direction should we take this statement? Is Jesus God’s Ambassador or simply a lunatic who has just shown his true colors?

When we look at Jesus’ life, both before and after this statement, we can better understand which way we should lean when answering this question.

Looking at Jesus’ ministry and life prior to this statement, we see plenty of miracles and events that could only happen if God was with Jesus. God would not support a lunatic as strongly as He supported Jesus’ ministry.

Also, prior to this statement, Jesus had repeatedly warned the disciples about His upcoming death and resurrection. When both these events happened exactly how Jesus described they would, we can conclude that God would not have supported predictions and claims like this from a lunatic.

Following this statement, we see Jesus dying without giving any indication He was withdrawing or backtracking on this claim. A lunatic would most likely say almost anything to avoid death, but it appears that Jesus welcomed it.

And the greatest validation for this claim Jesus made is that He rose from the dead. Only a tiny number of people in history have truly died, been buried, and then rose back to life. God would not have raised a lunatic from the dead to validate a prophecy the lunatic had made.

These details together point us to the challenging fact that Jesus must be telling the truth when He tells us that the Father lives inside Him and was responsible for the Person He was.

Jesus came to reveal the Father to the world, and if we ever have a question about what the Father is like, all we need to do is look at how Jesus lived to find our answer. The Father lived inside of Jesus and the Father was responsible for Jesus’ healing, preaching, teaching, and every other portion of His ministry. God offers us a new life with Him through Jesus, and we would be wise to take Him up on His offer!