72 The Fundamentals the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:28, 29). But if Jesus were not, in some mysterious sense, the Lord of His own life, what power had He to dispose of it as He pleased ? And how could He recall it when gone ? And how could he communicate spiritual life, if He were not its Divine Fountain ? And how could He raise the dead from their graves, if He were not the Almighty Creator? All these claims, if genuine, necessitate faith in the Godhead of Jesus. 6. Jesus declared that He had the ability to do all His Fathers works. The Saviour had healed the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath day. When accused by the Jews of sin for this act, our Lord justified Himself by the ever-memorable words, “My Father worketh hitherto [that is, on the Sabbath day in sustaining and blessing the worlds], and I work”—on the same day, therefore, in healing the sick,— thus indirectly asserting His right to do all that His Father did, and, as the Jews put it, claiming such a Sonship as made Him “equal with God.” But our Lord did not abate one iota of His claim. True, He admitted that, as the Incarnate Medi- ator, He had received His authority from the Father, but He declared that “What things soever the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” (John 5:17-19). Now, no language can overestimate the sublimity of this claim. Christ affirmed that He possessed full right and ability to do all that the Eternal Father had the right and ability to do. Was such language ever used by the most inspired or the most daring of mere mortals ? We do not forget that our Lord was careful to de- clare that the Father had committed all judgment to Him (John 5:22), but had He not Himself been a partaker of the Godhead how could He, as the Incarnate One, have been quali- fied to be armed with the prerogative so vast? He who can do all the works of God must be God! 7. Jesus spake of Himself as the greatest gift o f infinite mercy even. In His conversation with Nicodemus, Christ
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker