Father and Son

John 5:17-30 (NRSVCE)

But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.

Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished. Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes. The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Very truly, I tell you, anyone who

hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life.

“Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself; and he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.

“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me.

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Jesus calls God “Father,” which outrages the Jews as they see Jesus making himself equal to God. Why does it seem that way to them? Is a son always equal to his father? Fathers are the head of the household, right? So that should make the son less than the father, at least in some respect. Lucky for us, C.S. Lewis devotes an entire chapter of Mere Christianity to this topic.

The distinction Lewis uses is between “making” and “begetting.” We say all the time that Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God, and there’s a reason we use that particular phrase. When you make something, you are making something other than yourself. You are making a chair, or a car, or a hotdish (or a casserole, but that’s a distinction for another time). God made everything that is, and nothing that He made is God. It is all “other.” But when you beget something, you beget something of the very same nature as yourself. A tiger begets a tiger cub, not a lion cub. A chicken begets and egg. Or perhaps an egg begets a chicken. I’m still not really sure on that one. A human begets a human. It is impossible for something to beget something of a different nature. A human cannot beget a tiger, or a Porsche, or a Vulcan. You can only beget children. That is the fundamental relationship between father and son, and why the Jews were so upset at what Jesus said. If God is the Father of Jesus, it means Jesus is of the very same nature as the Father. It means Jesus is God.

But the relationship between Father and Son is also much more intimate than that between a human father and his human son. They are utterly united in all things, even their very wills are united. “I can do nothing on my own.” There are plenty of things my father does which I don’t do, and many things I do which he would never even want to do. My father wills to eat Dots candy, while I will to throw Dots in the trash where they belong. I will to spend my time in front of a computer screen, while he wills to work with his hands. We are still united in that filial bond, and a bond of friendship, but we are not so united that we will the same things all the time. The Son is totally united to the Father’s will.

It’s even more than this, however. Even since the Church Fathers in the first few centuries after the Resurrection, Christians have talked about the Persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, being united not only in nature, not only in relationship, not only in will, but in action as well! If you look at any divine action in Scripture or throughout history, you can see all three Persons at work. They are all present in every divine action. A technical term for this unity of the Persons would be perichoresis, or circumincession if you’re more Latin-inclined. The idea here being that each Person surrounds (peri, circum) and contains (chorein, incedere) the others—a mutual indwelling. Though this is starting to get much more technical than I had intended. The point being here that though we use the terms Father and Son to describe this relationship, at the end of the day this is an analogy. The unity of Father and Son is far deeper than any human relationship. It is one of those mysteries which Christians have been contemplating throughout the ages, and one which we will contemplate forever.