Why Did the Religious Leaders Seek to Kill Jesus?

Tom:

We are going through the gospel of John and we’ve been taking lots of time here but the gospel of John features the gospel: what must I do to be saved?Faith, trusting in the Lord.

Dave:

Yes, it’s quite different from the other gospels.It has a clear presentation of the gospel than Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

Tom:

Yes, Dave we are going to pick up with John:5:17But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
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Dave:

You know let me say another word about that.The gospel of John has more teaching by Christ and less narrative than the others as well.It does not have the Sermon on the Mount which was to a broad multitude, but it has intimate teaching to his disciples, one of the things that distinguishes it.

Tom:

Yes, okay.Picking up with verse 17: “But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.Therefore the Jews (that is the religious Jews, the religious leaders) sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.”Now he had just healed a man who had a long term illness and they were upset with the man, because once he was healed he picked up his bed on the Sabbath.

Dave:

You’d think they would be excited.Praise God!Someone is walking this earth who lives a perfect life and who heals people.I mean really heals them.They were jealous.That’s their problem.

Tom:

Dave, making himself equal with God.That was not just a light thing to them.They didn’t understand.

Dave:

Well they hadn’t really heard about Father God before.This was a concept that Jesus brought, but some people would say well we are all the children of God.Well Jesus makes it possible for us to become the children of God.We saw that in John:1:12But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
See All..., 13, “As many as received him to them gave he the power (or the authority) to be called the sons of God, even those who believe on his name which are born, you know not of flesh and blood, not of man’s will.”This is nothing that man can do, but it’s something that God does.We are born into the family of God by the Spirit of God.But this was an absolutely new concept.You don’t find it in the Old Testament.

Tom:

God is never referred to in the Old Testament as “Abba,” obviously Hebrew and Greek, but “Abba, Father” that’s obviously a very intimate personal term.

Dave:

Right, so Jesus is saying God is my Father.In other words, it’s a claim to the virgin birth.He does not have an earthly father.But God is his father, the mother is Mary.She’s not the mother of God, God is the Father, in fact, and Jesus always existed.He always existed before he was born.Now Mary was the mother of his physical birth.She’s the vehicle through which he had a physical body that came into this earth.

Tom:

Dave, why do you object to the Mother of God?As a former Catholic that’s the term we used.

Dave:

Tom, God does not have a mother.We talked about it.

Tom:

Mary is not eternal.

Dave:

God always is.So God does not have a mother because Jesus, his physical body was born in the womb, in the womb of the Virgin Mary.It does not mean she is the mother of God.She is the mother of his physical body and for example, Micah:5:2But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
See All... says, “Thou Bethlehem of Judea, thou you are little, (or least in fact,) among the princes of Judah, out of you shall he come forth who will be ruler over my people Israel.And then it says, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”So the one who was born as a man into this earth is the everlasting father in fact, it says.That’s what it calls him in Isaiah:9:6For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
See All....You couldn’t possibly say that Mary was the mother of God.That was an elevation of Mary, a position in which she does not have and ought not to have.But anyway the Jews recognize when he says God is his Father, they say you are claiming to be God.See there are people who say that Jesus never claimed to be God.Well wait a minute that is why they crucified him.In John 10 when we get to it, if the Lord doesn’t rapture us out of here first, they take up stones to stone him.Jesus says, “I’ve done many good works, for which of these works do you stone me?”They said, “For a good work we stone you not, but because you, a mere man, are making yourself out to be God.”Far from not claiming to be God, the claim that he was God was so clear that was why the Jews tried to stone him, and that was why they crucified him.

Tom:

Verse 19: “Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.”Now Dave I can think back to when I first read that verse—

Dave:

As a new Christian.

Tom:

Yes, as a new Christian, I thought wait a minute, Jesus can do nothing of himself?We just said a few seconds ago, Jesus is God.I really had trouble with this, I really wrestled with it.

Dave:

I and my Father are one.He is the Father, it says in Isaiah:9:6For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
See All..., “For unto us a child is born, a son is given, the child, the babe in Bethlehem, the son given from heaven, the eternal Son of God, the government shall be upon his shoulders, his name shall be called wonderful, counselor, the mighty God, whoa, the babe born in Bethlehem is the Mighty God?Yes, it goes beyond that—the everlasting Father.So when Jesus said I and my Father are one, he really meant one in essence.We don’t understand that.This is the trinity, yet he says he can’t do anything of himself, but only what the Father does.Because there is a oneness, a unity, in the Trinity.No member of the Trinity goes off on his own.There is an incredible—I mean we don’t understand this.Three persons, one God.Each one is fully God and each one is separate and distinct from the other and yet they are one.There is this oneness and I guess we’ve talked about that many times in the past.“Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.”Yahweh our Eloheim is one and the word for one there is “echad.” It doesn’t mean a singular entity; it means a unity of more than one.

Tom:

Do you have any problem with the word tri-unity?

Dave:

No, I don’t have any problem with it.

Tom:

Because it is a collective and as you’ve been pointing out here, the Father—Jesus does nothing.He does everything enabled by the Spirit and according to the Father.So it just—

Dave:

Well when Jesus says, when we get to it later in John 16, when he the spirit of truth is come, he will not speak of himself.That doesn’t mean he won’t talk about himself, he will not speak on his own initiative.So Father, Son and Holy Spirit work together in perfect harmony, perfect unity.This is the unity that God wants for his church.

Tom:

Dave I remember teaching a class on the cults, and I was comparing different cult groups that deny the deity of Christ and I made a point.We were talking about the gospel of John and I just threw out that Jesus is God and I just went on.Somebody in the back of the room—and this was a conservative Baptist church and somebody in the back of the room stopped me and she said, “Are you saying that Jesus is God?”Now here’s my point.Sometimes we assume that people understand basic teachings.And lots of times, we’re not saying these Jews didn’t understand.They thought Jesus was blaspheming claiming to be equal with God.But in Christianity there are people who are so—doctrine is so foreign to them that something like that can throw them off.Jesus is God?

Dave:

And when we get to chapter eight we’ll find out that Jesus says if you don’t believe that I’m God, you’ve had it.You will die in your sins and where I go, you cannot come.So this is vital, and that she wouldn’t know that?That’s sad.