Friday, April 20, 2007

Perfect Father, perfect Son, perfect trust

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me--just as the Father knows me and I know the Father--and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life--only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father" (John 10:11-18).

None of us can really understand the special relationship that exists between Jesus and our heavenly Father. Jesus is the perfect Son, and God the Father is the perfect Father; the relationship of love and trust that they share is perfect in a way that lies beyond our comprehension. None of us had perfect fathers; none of us who are parents have had perfect children. Some earthly fathers have smaller flaws, like being forgetful or easily irritated; others have more significant weaknesses like being unforgiving or emotionally distant. Some earthly children have lesser faults, like being lazy or being unable to take anything seriously; others cause their parents significant heartache by being rebellious or frequently getting into fights.

As we grow through life as a part of a family, our experience is that you cannot always trust your parents, you cannot always depend on your children. This is because all of us, parents and children alike, are victims of sin. Just as each of us inherit characteristics from our parents through sharing in their DNA, each of us also inherit the defect of sin, the inability to recognize God’s influence all around us, the inability to live our lives according to His high moral standards. Every day our defective human nature focuses our attention first and foremost on our needs and wants; it is only after we feel satisfied with life that we are inclined to think about the needs of others. It is because of this sinful self-focus that parents and children inevitably come into conflict with each other, because all too often their selfish desires cannot accommodate each other.

Because we have experienced only imperfect families in our lives, it is difficult for us to understand how a perfect Father/Son relationship works. But that is exactly the kind of relationship that Jesus and His Father share. God is without sin, and the Son of God is without sin. God the Father never acts out of selfish motivations, nor does His Son Jesus. From out of eternity, the Father and the Son have always had a perfectly harmonious relationship because the two of them have the same values and priorities; because the Father and the Son completely agree on everything, they can love and trust each other without hesitation or reservation. And it is this relationship that has resulted in our salvation.

Jesus has always been perfectly submissive to His Father. Even though Jesus is just as much God as the Father, Paul tells us He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped (Philippians 2:6). Jesus set the pattern for all of us by being the child who completely respects His Father’s authority and leadership, because He has absolute trust in His Father’s wisdom and love.

Jesus never acts independently of His Father’s will. In John chapter 5, Jesus said: "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. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does." Jesus never acts independently of His Father’s will, because Jesus trusts His Father’s judgment completely and because the two of them think alike. So when our ancestors became sinfully selfish because of sin, cursing themselves with lives of conflict and an eternity of God’s anger, the Father and the Son were in perfect agreement: man must be offered a way to be freed from the sin that is passed down from human parent to human child.

In His perfect wisdom, the Father created a way to do this, a plan of salvation that would do away with the selfishness of sin but not do away with the person who was born the helpless victim of sin. The plan was this: sin would be killed through the shedding of blood, but that blood would not be our blood, it would be the blood of God’s Son instead. The Father would arrange for His Son to be born in a human body, a body that could be put to death and buried. His Son would assume responsibility for all human sin by being baptized as one of us; and after Jesus had explained to His followers what He was going to do and why it was necessary, Jesus would allow Himself to be put to death, because through His death the power of sin would also be killed. With sin dead and buried in Jesus’ grave, the Son of God would then return to life, a living guarantee that the power of sin to condemn men to hell was ended. This was the plan the Father proposed to save us all from the consequences of our sinful selfishness.

We can be eternally grateful for Jesus’ response. Jesus was in complete agreement with His Father—no sacrifice would be too great in order to rescue us from the curse of death and hell that sin brings into our lives. God the Father and God the Son both loved us too much to allow us to suffer through a miserable, pointless life only to continue to suffer even after death—not without trying to save us from ourselves. And Jesus trusted His Father’s wisdom completely—when the Father said that becoming a man and going through death back to life was the only way to save us, Jesus accepted that truth and willingly agreed to carry out the task. Jesus agreed to the plan of salvation, not only because He loved us, but also because He loved and trusted His Father.

It must be clear—Jesus was never forced to surrender His life. He said, No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. Many times during His ministry, people tried to kill Him, but they were not successful because it was not the right time or place for Jesus to die for our salvation. In chapter 7, John records: they tried to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his time had not yet come. In chapter 8, he writes: they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. In Luke chapter 4, we are told: All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. Jesus is the Son of God—there was absolutely no way that mere men could take His life from him on their own. It was not until Jesus celebrated the third Passover of His ministry that the appointed time arrived; John records: It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love (John 13:1). When His hour finally arrived, Jesus went willingly to trial, sentencing and death; when Peter tried to get Jesus to resist arrest, Jesus said, "Put your sword back in its place...for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?" (Matthew 26:52-54)

Jesus said, "I lay down my life--only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father." Jesus was obedient to His Father’s will, but God the Father did not order Jesus to sacrifice His life for us. The Father left the final decision in Jesus’ hands. Our heavenly Father told Jesus that if He willingly went to death as our sacrifice, a return to life was guaranteed—but this would in no way ease the intense suffering that Jesus would undergo, in order to suffer on our behalf the hell we deserved. This was no small thing that the Father asked, and if Jesus had wanted rescue from the soldiers in the Garden of Gethsemane, He need only have said the word and His Father would have sent an army of angels to put the murderous Jews in their place. But Jesus was willing to endure any pain to spare us from everlasting pain, and He trusted that His Father would not ask Him to save us in this way if any other means were possible. And so Jesus suffered our hellish punishment on the cross, and He did so willingly—out of love and concern for us, out of love and trust in His Father.

God the Father knew His Son’s heart. He trusted in Jesus’ commitment to the Father and to us. Because the Father loved and trusted Jesus completely, He gave Jesus the authority to lay down and take up His life; He did this because the Father knew that Jesus wouldn’t let Him down, wouldn’t let us down. And Jesus proved that His Father’s trust in Him was well founded—Jesus did everything that the Father needed done to save us from sin and death and hell. God the Father had always loved His Son, but that love was increased even more because of Jesus’ willingness to sacrifice everything for our eternal good; this is why Jesus said, The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life--only to take it up again. What father could not be proud of such a son? How could the Father not elevate Him to the highest place, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father? (Philippians 2:9-10)

Jesus proved Himself worthy of His Father’s trust; He was given authority from above and used it responsibly. Jesus has proven that His love can always be relied on, that He always completes what He sets out to do, that He honors His commitments and keeps His promises. This should be of great comfort to you. This is the Jesus who promised, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28). This is the Son of God who said, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die (John 11:25). This is the Savior who declared, Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away (Matthew 24:35). This is the Christ who said, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty...whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day (John 6:35-40).

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