But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto and I work.
Jesus had just healed a disabled man at a pool in Jerusalem, and He did it on the Sabbath. The Jews accused Him of breaking the day of rest. He did not defend the act. He pointed to what His Father had never stopped doing — and His accusers heard the claim He was making about Himself.
God did rest once, when creation was new. That rest ended.
A Sabbath in the strict and proper sense could only happen when there was nothing left to do. It belonged to an undefiled creation — a creation with no spot of sin on it. God can have no rest where there is sin. Look around, and you learn that God cannot enjoy a rest in creation now. The thorn and the thistle, and ten thousand other sad and humbling fruits of a groaning creation, rise before us and declare that God must be at work and not at rest. Could He rest amid the sighs and tears, the groans and sorrows, the sickness and death, the degradation and guilt of a ruined world?
The creating is over; something else has taken its place.
The seventh day was a day of rest for God. His work had involved both creating and making, but all was now complete. From that time until now He has plainly not set His hand to work of that order. The entrance of sin made it necessary for Him to take up work of another order. The Lord Jesus referred to this when He said, "My Father is working until now, and I am working."
Notice what Jesus does not appeal to.
In the other Gospels, when people challenge the Lord for doing His works on the Sabbath day, He answers from the case of David eating the holy bread from God's house, or the priests doing work in the temple, or the way His accusers themselves would lead out their donkey to water on the Sabbath day. But here, in John's Gospel, He does not plead what David, or the priests, or His accusers would do or had done. He pleads what the heavenly Father had always been doing in this needy, ruined world.
This work is grace, and the scene at the pool shows what that means.
Christ had come to work. What makes it so blessed is this truth: it was not man's work and man's strength; the Father and the Son are the workmen in our salvation. The law required man to work, just as the pool of Bethesda required a man to be quick enough to get himself into it. But in the gospel, it is God who works: "My Father is working."
The two words that inflamed His hearers were not about the Sabbath at all.
It was an overwhelming answer. They knew nothing of fellowship with the Father. He, not they, could call God "My Father," and loved to say that He "is working until now." For the Father could not rest in sin, He would not rest in misery. This is not yet God judging. So He was working as Father, and working until now — though only now was He declaring Himself Father, in and by the Son. Jesus, the Son, had fellowship with His Father, unbroken and perfect.
His hearers drew a conclusion about equality with God. That conclusion needs stating with care.
If the time for God's rest had not come, the full time for His work had, so that people might be made ready for a place in that rest. The Jews were right to take the Lord's words as involving His equality with the Father. But for that reason it could not be true that He made Himself God. The truth was this: being in the form of God, He did not treat equality with God as a grasping at something that was not His own. Instead He emptied Himself — that is the wonderful word — and took the form of a servant.
The Master's answer settles something for His followers too.
"Sabbath" means "rest," and the Lord said, "My Father is working until now, and I am working." The Lord Jesus could not rest in a world full of sin and suffering. He could not keep the Sabbath down here... No more can a true Christian keep the Sabbath in such a world. He has no more right to be resting here than his Master. If his Master must work, so must he. But in Hebrews 4:9 we read, "So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God." The Sabbath rest is ahead of us.
- Sin broke the rest. God rested over a spotless creation. Thorns, tears and death ended that rest, so He took up work of another kind.
- Work of grace. This work is not judgment but grace. The law asked a helpless man to move himself; at the pool, God moved instead.
- Father and Son together. In John, Jesus points to no example from David or the priests. He points to what His Father has always done — and does the same Himself.
- "My Father" is the offence. Those two words claimed a place no one else could take. His hearers heard equality with God in them.
- Rest still ahead. The work ends in the Sabbath rest that remains for God's people. Until then the servant works, like his Master.
For this therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he had not only violated the sabbath, but also said that God was his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Jesus healed a sick man on the sabbath, and the man reported Him to His enemies. When Jesus answered by pointing to His Father's work, their anger hardened into a plan to kill Him.
The Lord did not argue about sabbath rules. He pointed to His Father's work and set His own beside it.
It was the sabbath day. The Jews draw attention to the fact. The Lord takes up the blessed character He had as Son, and says: "My Father is working until now, and I am working." How can God rest where sin is? Where misery is? He cannot have His rest in a world like this. Christ had come to work. But what makes it so blessed, dear friends, is this truth: it was not man's work and man's strength. The Father and the Son are the workmen in our salvation.
The pool of Bethesda pictured the difference between law and gospel.
The law required man to work, just as the pool of Bethesda required a man to be quick enough to get himself into it. But in the gospel, it is God who works: "My Father is working."
Why did the Lord keep healing on that particular day? The sabbath was Israel's sign before the nations.
To be a sign, a thing must be outward, something men can observe. The sabbath was such an outward observance. Keeping it with care would at once have made Israel a distinct people among the nations. It would also have shown that they were in covenant relations with God. This makes the Lord's repeated acts of mercy on the sabbath day full of meaning. He was showing that the mercy of God is not restricted by the law God had given. He was also showing that the grace He brought was setting aside the law of Moses as the basis of acceptance before God. John 5:17-18 shows this most clearly.
The wording matters. He claimed God as His own Father, and He never softened it.
He did not deny, but confessed, that God was His own Father in a sense that was true of none but Himself. This is the truth of all truths most owed to God, and the turning point of all blessing to man. By it the believer knows God and has life everlasting. Without it a person is an enemy of God, as the Jews showed themselves that day and ever since. They were hardened men, blinded in a stubborn and fatal way. In supposed zeal for God's honour, they sought all the more to kill Jesus, His own Son, who had come in infinite love to make the Father known and to reconcile man to God. But God is wise and infinitely good in His work. He let them prove their malice to the very end, and when the time came they killed Jesus. In that act He proved His own love to the full in atonement.
The phrase "making Himself equal with God" is easy to read as the hostile spin of angry men. One writer points out that it is not their comment at all.
Note carefully: verse 18 is John's own explanation of why the Jews sought to kill Him. It is not his record of the explanation the Jews gave — though of course it may have been the explanation they gave too. So it is the comment of the Holy Spirit through John. It proves that in the Sonship of our Lord there is no thought of any inferiority to the Father. On the contrary, it is the assertion of equality.
Another writer points out who had really broken the sabbath, and what His enemies heard in His answer.
The Lord simply points out that someone else has broken the sabbath, not Himself. Man's sin has broken God's rest, and it has stayed broken ever since the fall — on the sabbath as on every other day the Father works, and the Son works with Him. Their own conscience should have bowed to this and owned the truth. Instead, they hate Him still more because of His announced Sonship to the Father. Unlike modern unbelievers, they saw that such a claim meant equality with God.
Rejecting the Son costs more than a missed blessing.
Man as he is needed life out of death, and this the Father is giving in the Son... Could they, then, reject the Son and miss only this infinite blessing of life in Him? No — the Father has given all judgment to the Son. He will have everyone honour the Son, just as they honour the Father.
- Rest broken. Man's sin broke God's rest, not Christ. God cannot rest in a world of misery, so the Father works and the Son works with Him.
- Work begun. The pool waited for a man quick enough to get in; in the gospel God works. Salvation is the joint work of Father and Son, not of man.
- Sign set aside. The sabbath was the visible badge of Israel's covenant. Touching it on purpose signalled that law was no longer the basis of acceptance with God.
- Claim made. "His own Father" is true of no one else. By that truth a person knows God and has eternal life; without it he stands as God's enemy.
- Charge confirmed. John, writing by the Spirit, agrees with what His enemies worked out: the Son is equal with God, in no way less. Their malice ran on to the cross, where God proved His love in atonement.
Jesus therefore answered and said to them, Verily, verily, I say to you, The Son can do nothing of himself save whatever he sees the Father doing for whatever things *he* does, these things also the Son does in like manner.
The leaders had charged Jesus with making God His own Father, and so making Himself equal with God. His answer sounds like a step back — the Son can do nothing on His own. Commentators read it the other way: not a retreat from the charge, but the explanation of it.
The Lord's reply does not soften the charge. It confirms it.
The Lord does not deny, but confesses the charge of the Jews that He "said that God was His own Father," for "the Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise." The Son does the same things as the Father and in the same manner. There was, therefore, absolute equality without independence.
The phrase is not about lack of power. Several writers render it "from Himself" and explain it as a matter of source — who starts the action.
The first thing is that He could do nothing of Himself — or rather, from Himself. This was true in the lowly place He willingly took. His whole mission was to carry out the will of Another. While He was doing it, He could not start a single action of His own. His will was perfect as He Himself was perfect, and yet He never allowed His will to govern Him in what He did. Doing the Father's will was His food, and for that very reason He could do nothing of Himself.
The Father shows, the Son sees, and the Son does the same. That last word means more than copying.
The Son is standing here, in this world, speaking to men of what He sees, and is in contact with, in another world. The Father shows Him, and He sees. It is not that the Son does works of a like nature to the Father, but He does the identical same works. In that way He is doing the works of the Father, just as He is speaking the Father's words.
The verse has two halves, and both are meant. One rules out acting alone. The other shows who alone could speak this way.
He was not here, then, to act as God, independently, for He said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing." He had come only to act in absolute dependence upon the Father; yet only One equal with the Father could have said, "For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise." All His works were the Father's works, showing the Father's nature and will. In His works the Father was revealed.
Commentators differ on how far back this reaches. Some tie the words to the place He took when He became man:
The Son, having become man, therefore became subject to the Father. He moved and acted with reference to the Father instead of acting on His own initiative. Scriptures like this one describe the position the Son took in relation to the Father when He became man.
Others say this dependence was always true of the Son. What was new was obedience:
This was always true. But He was here on earth, in a new position for Him. Before He became man, He knew nothing of obedience. He did not act on His own. He acted as sovereign, together with the Spirit and the Father. But He became man. He came into our condition and circumstances. He entered a new relationship — one of dependence. So He learned obedience, a new experience for Him.
What looks like a limit turns out to be evidence.
The Father put all things into His hand, yet the Son would not act on His own. It is impossible for the Son to act apart from the Father. They are one in the fullness of the Godhead, and their bond of love is eternal.
What marked the Son also marks a perfect man.
Two things make perfection in a man: dependence and obedience. They were in Christ, the contrast to what was in Adam when he sinned. Christ was ever the dependent and the obedient one. Independence is sin: there is the principle of sin in it... With Christ there was no will but His Father's. This was not a restraint on Him but His motive.
- Charge — They accused Him of making Himself equal with God. His answer never takes that claim back.
- Source — "Of Himself" means "from Himself." The Father starts the action; the Son carries it out.
- Sameness — He does not do works like the Father's. He does the identical works, in the identical way.
- Equality — Only One equal with the Father could say that He does whatever the Father does. His dependence proves the union; it does not deny it.
- Pattern — He refused to act from Himself. Dependence and obedience make a perfect man; acting on your own is where sin begins.