Bible Study - John 5

I don't usually do Bible studies but today I came across a passage in John 5 and wanted to break it down and weigh it against the rest of the context in the book of John, as well as the rest of the Bible.  The verse that stopped me in my tracks is John 5:22, "Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son [...]." 

God doesn't judge us?  Maybe I'd heard that in church before, but it never sunk in.  The whole concept of the trinity is so crammed into my head that I just pass all three members off as One.  Which they are...I'll end there before I get side-tracked.  My point is that if it says, "the Father judges no one, but entrusted all judgment to the Son," I usually just glaze over it thinking, "Same guy."  

No.  A professor of mine put it this way (regarding the Trinity), "I am three different people in one body.  I am a son to my parents, a husband to my wife and a father to my kids."  Not a perfect example by any means, but I like it as a simple illustration.  God the Father and God the Son, clearly have two very different responsibilities, not to mention the work of the Holy Spirit.  

Verse 20 says, "For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does."  The keyword there is "love."  God the Father's basic character is "love" or the word I will use is "good."  A.W. Tozer has some inspired words regarding this.  

"Divine goodness, as one of God’s attributes, is self-caused, infinite, perfect, and eternal. Since God is immutable He never varies in the intensity of His loving-kindness. He has never been kinder than He now is, nor will He ever be less kind. He is no respecter of persons but makes His sun to shine on the evil as well as on the good, and sends His rain on the just and on the unjust. The cause of His goodness is in Himself, the recipients of His goodness are all His beneficiaries without merit and without recompense.

With this agrees reason, and the moral wisdom that knows itself runs to acknowledge that there can be no merit in human conduct, not even in the purest and the best. Always God’s goodness is the ground of our expectation. Repentance, though necessary, is not meritorious but a condition for receiving the gracious gift of pardon which God gives of His goodness."

I heard a story by G.K. Chesterton that offers an interesting point of view into the goodness of God.  He writes about a toddler who is unmeasurably excited about playing with his father.  Over and over, in between uncontrollable belly laughs, the toddler screams, "Again! Again!"  So the father continues.  Hours could pass, even days.  A year could go by and this toddler would never bore of this hilarious, exciting act with his dad.  Chesterton says God is like that toddler.  That God makes the sun rise every day for the simple reason that He just loves it.  It fascinates Him.  The Bible says that God "delights" in us.  We are His work of art (Ephesians 2:10).  

It doesn't sound as far-fetched now that God doesn't judge us.  Verse 22 says, "Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son."  A few pages before this, in John 3, it says, "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him."  Condemn is a keyword in that verse.  The Son is still the one who judges us, but considering the rest of the Bible, we need not be afraid of that.  John 5:19 says, "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does."  And the Father is good.

As I was saying, Jesus came to save the world, not condemn.  To condemn is to "express complete disapproval of; find someone guilty of a criminal act or wrong; prove, show guilt of; force (someone) to endure something unpleasant or undesirable."  The Son came to do none of that.  Quite the opposite, actually. I don't want to imply that Jesus is a pushover, so we should party it up while we're down here.  He is just and powerful, and nobody's fool.  He did come to save us, but we will also be judged according to what we do.  

Verse 27 says, "He has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man."  I think God is appealing to a human argument here.  He is saying, "I gave Jesus authority to judge so you have no excuse.  You can't say you are being judged by some holy, amorphous being who knows nothing of the human condition."  Again, I don't want to imply that God can't wrap his mind around what it is to be human, He is just appealing to a human argument.  He clearly does this in verse 33.  Jesus says, "You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth.  Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved."  

God is good and He wants to communicate with us.  I heard a preacher telling his people that God is not sitting on some far off throne somewhere calling fouls.  He is here, elbow deep in our daily lives.  He delights in us.  I will close with another quote from Tozer's Knowledge of the Holy, "That God is good is taught or implied on every page of the Bible and must be received as an article of faith as impregnable as the throne of God. It is a foundation stone for all sound thought about God and is necessary to moral sanity. To allow that God could be other than good is to deny the validity of all thought and end ill the negation of every moral judgment. If God is not good, then there can be no distinction between kindness and cruelty, and heaven can be hell and hell, heaven.

The goodness of God is the drive behind all the blessings He daily bestows upon us. God created us because He felt good in His heart and He redeemed us for the same reason."

Cliche (God is Our Shepherd)

It's been a while since I've written anything on here.  That's because I haven't felt like I had anything to say.  As I've expressed before, the only intended reader of this blog is myself, so each word I write is written to me.  

I want to say that times are hard these days.  I think in some circles I could get away with saying that.  I'm unemployed, broke, and have monthly expenses that need to be paid.  But does that mean times are hard?  I often feel I am under attack from Satan, getting pelted by his anxiety-tipped arrows of doubt and despair.  But when I take a step back and examine the bigger picture, I notice that God is there.  I turn around and see that week by week, month by month, God has provided for each bill, each expense and it gives me joy.  Psalm 94:18+19 says, "When I said, 'My foot is slipping,' your love, O LORD, supported me.   When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul."  

I'm learning what it means to have God as my shepherd.  Ezekiel 34:31 says, "You my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, are people, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign LORD."  When Jesus came as a man he reiterated this in John 10:14, "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me." 

God as my shepherd is another one of those Christianese analogies that lost its meaning to me for a while.  Probably because I didn't really need a shepherd, or at least thought I didn't.  It gives me such peace knowing that God cares me for like one in his flock.  Jesus said that if only one of his sheep goes missing, he will leave all the rest behind and go find it.  He gave his life for his sheep.  He knows his sheep by name, and his sheep now his voice.  It is a close relationship, a shepherd to his sheep.  A shepherd's main job is to see that his flock is cared for, that every need is met.  "For he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care," Psalm 95:7. 

This leads to another big lesson I am learning, and another one of those Christian-isms that I had grown up with.  "God will meet all of my needs, but not all of my wants."  It's been said so much that it is just barely hanging on for meaning, but it is so true.  I can bank on God providing for me.  I have a list of past experiences where I've seen it first hand.  But it has rarely left me with any extra.  My cup rarely "runneth over."  However, it is producing character in me.  I am finding that I am, in fact, content with not having much. 

To say I am "suffering" right now is too overdramatic, but I can relate to this passage in Romans 5.  "We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."  I am learning to persevere.  Resilience is the name of the game.  I've quoted this verse several times, "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed (2 Corinthians 4:8)."  

Life is bigger than me and my little problems.  But that doesn't mean God doesn't care about the tough things I deal with.  The book of Psalms contains more songs of lament than anything else.  John Ortberg suggests that it is because the Israelites believed God took a personal interest in their problems. The bible says to not be unsettled in your trials because we know quite well we are destined for them.  God is bigger and He takes a personal interest in us.