During the night Jesus was betrayed and arrested, the gospel of John records the final time Jesus was able to freely share with the disciples prior to facing the events that would lead up to His death. In this conversation, Jesus makes a profound claim that everyone who calls himself or herself a Christian will have to resolve in his/her mind.
Early on in this conversation, Jesus tells the small group of disciples: “What I say isn’t said on my own. The Father who lives in me does these things.” (v. 10b)
This statement is powerful because Jesus is basically saying that everything He does, and every part of Himself is because of God the Father living inside of Him. If what Jesus is telling the disciples is true in this statement (which I believe is true), then this means that everyone who rejects, minimizes, discounts, ignores, or opposes Jesus is really opposing God the Father – even if they think they simply are rejecting a mere carpenter who lived long ago.
The reason this is so significant in my mind is that with this claim, Jesus basically removes Himself out of the equation and leaves people left with a picture of the God the Father. With this statement, either Jesus steps into being a lunatic, or He has shared an incredibly powerful truth that should frame every Christian’s frame of reference.
But which direction should we take this statement? Is Jesus God’s Ambassador or simply a lunatic who has just shown his true colors?
When we look at Jesus’ life, both before and after this statement, we can better understand which way we should lean when answering this question.
Looking at Jesus’ ministry and life prior to this statement, we see plenty of miracles and events that could only happen if God was with Jesus. God would not support a lunatic as strongly as He supported Jesus’ ministry.
Also, prior to this statement, Jesus had repeatedly warned the disciples about His upcoming death and resurrection. When both these events happened exactly how Jesus described they would, we can conclude that God would not have supported predictions and claims like this from a lunatic.
Following this statement, we see Jesus dying without giving any indication He was withdrawing or backtracking on this claim. A lunatic would most likely say almost anything to avoid death, but it appears that Jesus welcomed it.
And the greatest validation for this claim Jesus made is that He rose from the dead. Only a tiny number of people in history have truly died, been buried, and then rose back to life. God would not have raised a lunatic from the dead to validate a prophecy the lunatic had made.
These details together point us to the challenging fact that Jesus must be telling the truth when He tells us that the Father lives inside Him and was responsible for the Person He was.
Jesus came to reveal the Father to the world, and if we ever have a question about what the Father is like, all we need to do is look at how Jesus lived to find our answer. The Father lived inside of Jesus and the Father was responsible for Jesus’ healing, preaching, teaching, and every other portion of His ministry. God offers us a new life with Him through Jesus, and we would be wise to take Him up on His offer!
This thought was inspired by studying the Walking With Jesus “Reflective Bible Study” package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, click here and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!
Read this article on the web on it's official page: Lunatic or Ambassador: John 14:1-14
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