Real Hope: Back to Basics - JesusSample

He Is All He Says He Is

John 5 records Jesus’ miraculous healing of a crippled man and the subsequent outrage of the religious leaders that Jesus healed on a holy day and, most importantly, justified His actions by saying that God was His Father and that He had told Him to do so. The leaders were stunned and asked the question that we, too, must ask – ‘Are you equal with God?’

Jesus replied carefully and clearly that He was, indeed, both the Son of God and God the Son. He offered five proofs of His divinity as follows. Firstly, that He is in intimate relationship with God (vv. 19–20). Secondly, He, like God the Father, raises the dead (v. 21). Thirdly, He has been given authority to be the judge of all mankind (v. 22). Fourthly, He is to be honoured just like the Father (v. 23) and, finally, He, like the Father, is ‘self-existent’ (v. 26), a defining sign of deity.

Jesus’ own defence of His relationship with God is ratified by the fact that God raised Him from the dead as attested to in Romans 1:4, ‘… and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead’ (NKJV).

If we can, by God’s grace, begin to grasp the reality of Jesus’ assertions, we can begin to accept and receive Him as both Saviour and Lord. Those who have done so throughout the ages have experienced that He is all who He says He is.

Written by JOHN SCOTT