John 5:19-29

the Father Working through the Son

John 5:19-29

The relationship of our Lord to the Father was such that He felt Himself competent to fulfill all the functions of the Divine Being. Is it God's prerogative to raise the dead? It is also Jesus Christ's. The Son quickeneth whom He will, John 5:21. Is it the divine right to be the judge of man? It is also the Redeemer's right.

See John 5:22. Is it the peculiar attitude of God to be the fountain of life, so that life, inherent, underived, and perennial, is ever arising in His nature, sustaining here an angel and there a humming-bird? This is also an attribute of our blessed Lord. So hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself, John 5:26.

The entire sum of the attributes of Deity are resident in the nature of the Son of man. But though all divine attributes were his, and might have been called into operation, He forebore to use them, that He might learn the life of dependence and faith, the life which was to become ours towards Himself. He did nothing apart from the Father, John 5:19, etc.

No vine ever clung more closely to its trellis, and no child to its mother, than He to the Father. See Galatians 2:20; Hebrews 12:2.