John 5:19

Ver. 19. “ Jesus therefore answered and said unto them: Verily, verily, I say unto you: the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing. For the things which he doeth, these doeth the Son also in like manner. ”

The interpreters who find a speculative idea in John 5:17, such as that of continuous creation, see in John 5:19-20, the unfolding of the metaphysical relation between the Father and the Logos. But if one gives to John 5:17, as we have done, a sense appropriate to the context, John 5:19-20 do not have this more or less abstract theological character; they, as well as John 5:17, have a practical application to the given case.

Jesus means to say, not: I am this or that for my Father; I sustain to Him such or such a relation; but: “Whatever work you see me do, though it should give offence to you, like that for which I am now accused, be well assured that, as a submissive Son, I have done it only because I saw may Father acting in this way at the same time.” There is no theology here; it is the explanation of His work which had been charged as criminal and of all His working in general, starting from the deepest law of His moral life, from His filial dependence with relation to His Father. This answer resembles the “I cannot do otherwise” of Luther, at Worms. Jesus puts His work under the guarantee of His Father's, as the impotent man had just put his own under the guarantee of the work of Jesus (John 5:11).

The first proposition of John 5:19 presents this defense in a negative form: Nothing by myself; the second, in an affirmative form: Everything under the impulse of the Father. The expression: can do nothing, does not denote a metaphysical impossibility or one of essence, but a moral, that is absolutely free, powerlessness. This appears from John 5:26 and from the very term Son, which Jesus intentionally substitutes for the pronoun I of John 5:17. For it is in virtue of His filial that is to say, His perfectly submissive and devoted character, that Jesus is inwardly prevented from acting of Himself, at any moment whatever. He would indeed have the power of acting otherwise, if He wished; and here is the idea which gives to the expression ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ, of Himself, a real and serious meaning.

In all the phases of His existence, the Son has a treasure of force belonging to Himself which He might use freely and independently of the Father. According to John 5:26, He could, as Logos, bring forth worlds out of nothing and make Himself their God. But He is wholly with God, here on earth as in heaven, (John 1:1); and rather than be the God of a world for Himself, He prefers to remain in His position as Son and not to use His creative power except in communion with His Father. This law of the Son in His divine life is also His law in His human existence. He possesses as man all the faculties of man, and besides, after the baptism, all the Messianic forces. Therewith He could create, of His own impulse, in the sense in which every man of talent creates create by and for Himself, and could found here below a kingdom which should be His own, like men of genius and conquerors. Was it not to this very real power that the various suggestions of Satan appealed in the wilderness? But He voluntarily refused to make any such use of His human and Messianic powers, and, invariably connecting His work with that of His Father, He thus freely remains faithful to His character as Son. The clause ἐὰν μή τι... unless He sees...doing it, or rather: if He does not see the Father doing it, does not restrict the idea to: do of Himself. It is rather an epexegetical explanation of ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ, of Himself: “Of Himself, that is to say, if He does not see...” The present participle ποιοῦντα, doing, answers to ἄρτι, now, of John 5:17: The Son sees the Father acting, and associates Himself, at the same instant, with His action. The figurative term βλέπειν, see, denotes the look of the mind constantly fixed upon the Father to watch for His will and to discern the point where His working actually is, in order to adapt His own to it. In fact, this cannot, of which Jesus has just spoken, is only the negative side of His filial devotion. But love, while preventing His acting by Himself, causes Him to co-operate actively in the work of the Father. Contemplating it as already accomplished in the thought of God, He immediately executes it on the earth. He can only act on this condition.

This is the idea contained in the second part of John 5:19. It is united by for to the preceding. In fact, if every work of His own is impossible for the Son, it is because He devotes Himself entirely to the work of the Father. The sum of His activity being absorbed in this voluntary dependence, there remains for Him neither time nor force for acting by Himself. ῝Α γὰρ ἄν, the things, whatever they may be. This word includes eventualities without number, and, as a consequence, many other infractions of their Pharisaic statutes besides the one which they have just seen and which gives them so much offense. But He has no change to make for this reason; for every work of the Father, whatever it may be, must reproduce itself in His work. The word in like manner, ὁμοίως, does not denote a mere imitation, for the Father's work is still to be done, since the Son sets Himself to the execution of it; it is rather, as Reuss says, “an application of the Son's work to the Father's.” The Father's work becomes that of the Son, in so far as the latter is capable of containing the former. The Son connects Himself at each moment with the work of the Father, in order to continue it in the measure in which His intelligence can embrace it and His power realize it. In this saying, we know not which is the more astonishing, the simplicity of the form or the sublimity of the idea. Jesus speaks of this intimate relation with the Being of beings, as if the question were of the simplest thing in the world. It is the saying of the child of twelve years: “ Must I not be in that which belongs to my Father? ” raised to its highest power. But this perfect subordination of the Son's work to the Father's cannot exist except on one condition: that the Father consents to initiate the Son incessantly into the course of His working. This is also what He deigns to do.