I don’t know about you, but when I think about what it means for Jesus to be divine, I’ve often just thought about the past. If Jesus helped create the world, he must by God. If Jesus lived from eternity with God the Father, he must be God. As John’s Gospel records,
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
Or again as Jesus says in John 17:
And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
Now there’s certainly a lot of truth in associating Jesus’ divinity with his preceding the world and his beginning various things. But I still wonder if these things only tell half of the story. As Asbury Theological Seminary President Timothy Tennent once said,
The very Christ we proclaim in the gospel is the greatest impossibility made possible. In fact, the gospel emerges in the context of two “impossibilities.” As someone once noted, He entered the world through a door marked “no entry” (a virgin womb). He left through a door marked “no exit” (a tomb). Two “impossibilities” made possible in Jesus Christ.
It's not just Jesus’ work at the beginning of the world and at the beginning of his life that show that he is God. It’s also Jesus’ work bringing about endings in the world. It’s the fact that the Son of God brings the world to its completion, fulfilling the will of the Father. It’s the fact that Jesus is the one who will come again in glory and bring this world as we know it to its end. And it’s the fact that Jesus’ resurrection assures us of both of these things. We’ll entitle the sermon this morning The Divinity of Jesus.
We’ll begin this morning by thinking a bit about the nature of the Son of God’s work at the beginning of the world. I have stressed many times that Genesis 1 focuses on God the Father creating the world. In the beginning God [that is, God the Father] created the heavens and the earth. This is what the Apostles Creed says too: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.” As Genesis 1 continues, God the Father continues to be stressed. Here the Father shouts out commands from heaven: let there be light, let there be a sky, let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear. Here the Father is clearly the lead actor, although the Spirit of God is also involved as an agent of the Father since the Spirit of God has been hovering over the waters.
What then about the Son? Well, he seems to start to share the spotlight towards the end of Genesis 1. Here the Father says to the Son “Let us make man in our image.” And then in Genesis 2 we see the Son intimately using his hands to form Adam and Eve and walk and talk with them. The Son is thus especially associated with the end of the six days of creation. This foreshadows the fact that the Son of God will be especially associated with bringing about the end of the world through taking on human flesh and leading people to heaven. So while the Son of God certainly helped create this world, he did so in such a way that pointed to his greater role in bringing about the conclusion to this world.
How then does Jesus bring about the end of the world then? There were hints of this in our text from John 10 a couple of weeks ago in connection with Jesus walking in the temple at Hanukkah. Here Jesus’ Hanukkah-fulfilling work of being the temple that would have to be destroyed and then rebuilt was distinguished from the work of the Father as Creator. Here Jesus showed that while his work was distinct from the Father, they also always work together. Thus Jesus said “I and the Father are one.” I didn’t mention it at the time, but this claim of Jesus immediately caused Jesus’ opponents to pick up stones to stone Jesus and say that the reason for this is “because you [Jesus], being a man, make yourself God (10:33).” Did you catch that? Jesus’ opponents correctly understood that Jesus was demonstrating his divinity especially in connection with the work he was doing at the end of his life, which would be his death and resurrection.
Our text this morning from Jesus’ sermon on the last night of his life also shows that Jesus was proving his divinity through his final work. For example, twice in our text Jesus says that if disciples will start asking the Father for anything in Jesus’ own name, the disciples will receive what they need from the Father. Here Jesus’ own work opens up new avenues in prayer. Disciples will have more and better things to pray for because of Jesus’ death and resurrection. This shows that Jesus was divine, for no mere man could make the claim that prayers had to go through them to get to the Father. Another way Jesus in our text proves his divinity is in saying that he is going to the Father. The Father took the initiative in sending Jesus into the world, as we can hear repeatedly at the beginning of John. To use familiar words, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. But the return trip of the Son to the Father comes by the initiative of the Son. Obviously it’s true that the Son trusts the Father for help in this. Nevertheless, the Son himself had to walk the lonely road to the cross. And especially this proved to the world the great love and divinity of the Son. The very end of our text also teaches something similar. Here Jesus says, “I have overcome the world.” If you stop and think about this, it’s an extraordinary claim. Think of hundreds of millions of people lining up against Jesus but then Jesus overcoming them all, all of the hatred, all of the sin. Here Jesus is already confidently anticipating his resurrection, which provides the decisive victory over sin. The fact that Jesus’ work will earn this victory and lead back to the Father in heaven again shows that Jesus is divine.
In case this concept may seem a bit foreign to you, I’d like to quickly reference a few other New Testament verses that speak similarly. Consider Hebrews 4:14: “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.” Here Jesus’ divinity, his being the Son of God, is associated with his having been raised from the dead and passing through the heavens to the Father. Or if you look at the beginning and ending of most of the New Testament epistles you will typically hear some blessing on behalf of God the Father and the Lord Jesus. This reflects the New Testament typically associating Jesus’ lordship with his death and resurrection. Thus at Jesus’ resurrection in John the disciples are glad when they see the Lord. So is Thomas when he finally sees the resurrected Jesus, and when he handles Jesus’ body he cries out “my Lord and my God.” Or as Romans 1:4 says concerning what God promised “concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
So our knowledge of Jesus’ lordship and his divinity are especially tied to his death for our sins and his resurrection for our eternal life. How then might this fact and our text this morning help us in our daily lives? Listen to a portion of Jesus’ words in our text:
In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
In our lives, are we doing a very good job of praying “in Jesus’ name”? That is, when we pray, are we keeping in our minds eye the sacrifice of Jesus for us? Are we truly focusing on people’s eternal welfare, which Jesus’ resurrection can ensure? Or do we often just think about our earthly welfare? Now don’t get me wrong, we also need to pray for various earthly provisions. But are we doing a good job thinking about how we might use those provisions to help others? Are we thinking about our high priest in heaven as we’re praying in his name? Are we putting Jesus’ Divinity to good use?
I fear that oftentimes we’re probably moving so fast in life that we aren’t doing a very good job praying in Jesus’ name. Oftentimes we’re probably just trying to make it through the day. Oftentimes we’re just trying to finish every task, make it to every appointment. When we pray, we’re often very tired. We might just quickly ask for the one big thing we need. But we may not think it through very well. But in doing these things, are we putting Jesus’ Divinity to good use? Are we utilizing Jesus’ resources, or are we focused too much on our efforts?
A thought that’s been on my mind quite a bit lately is that most people probably just need to slow down a little bit. It’s true that there are some people who need to get to work on something. But for most of us, we probably don’t need to work harder but smarter. Maybe we should take a little extra time praying to really think it through, to think about what we’re asking, the love of our Father whom we’re addressing, the sacrifice of Jesus that has enabled our prayer, what the Spirit is doing in the lives of those around us. With just a little deliberate slowing down in prayer and thinking, we might do a lot better at praying to the Father in Jesus’ name. But through it all, Jesus’ Divinity shines through. As our high priest he always stands before the Father with his sacrificed and risen body. And together, the Father and Son have a conversation about what they’ve done and about what we need in our lives and what other people need in theirs. Jesus always intercedes to the Father with us, always assuring us of our forgiveness for bad prayers and always promising to help us. And so may we this day at our Lord’s Table ponder Jesus’ Divinity.
