Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
Because Jesus never stops (as we studied yesterday), we know that He never stops working on our behalf. In John 5:17, Jesus said, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” Unceasing labor is an essential and eternal characteristic of God. Verse 18 clarifies that this statement of God the Son is a claim of absolute equality with God the Father. Trinitarian teaching is especially abundant throughout the Gospel of John. For example, Jesus said in John 4:24, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.” We should note that “a” is not found in the original Greek; in other words, God the Father is Spirit rather than merely a material being. “In Spirit” is a reference to God the Holy Spirit (as more fully explained in John 16:7-15), and “in Truth” points us to God the Son, Jesus Christ, Who in John 14:6 made the absolute claim, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” When we consider the work of Creation, we thus find working relationships within the Triune Godhead. Genesis 1:1 says of the Father, “God created the heaven and the earth.” Verse 2 focuses on the Holy Spirit: “The Spirit of God moved [worked] upon the face of the water.” John 1:1-3 tells us that Jesus also labored in Creation: “In the beginning was the Word [Jesus], and the Word was with God [the Father], and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” The core Trinitarian characteristic of work and the working relationships of the Trinity are amply evidenced in what we observe all around us. We can be certain, then, that our God has a working relationship with us, laboring in our lives and on our behalf.