The Good God - Son
Readings for this week August 5 - 9
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Day 1 – The Mission of the Son
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – John 17:1-5
What does this prayer tell us about the relationship between Jesus and his Father? What is revealed as the purpose for Jesus coming among us? What tools and gifts did the Father shower upon the Son in furtherance of their divine work? So much is contained in this chapter-long prayer, so much that reveals the closeness – the oneness – of the Father and the Son. Six times Jesus refers to his sending by the Father. He also mentions what the Father gave him to accomplish his mission: the authority to bestow eternal life; work to complete; believers; the words to speak; and glory. Jesus has brought glory to the Father by finishing the work the Father had given him; now he asks the Father to glorify him – glory that the Son had with the Father before the world was made.
Jesus was sent to us by his Father. He is God in the flesh amongst us. All that Jesus did was in loving obedience to the Father; all that he had and all that he shared with the disciples (and with us) was given to him by his Father for the purpose of fulfilling his salvific mission. He has glorified the Father, made his name known, spoken the Father’s words to the world, and manifested the Father’s glory in the world – things only possible because of the Son’s oneness with the Father. They share all things, including eternal glory, glory that is only God’s. And they shared in the saving, redemptive work that restores us, transforms us and gives us eternal life.
Questions to Consider
What do these verses of the prayer show us about the relationship between Jesus and his Father? Why is this important to know?
Prayer
Lord God, thank you for your Son. Thank you for sharing yourself with us so completely and wonderfully as you did in sending the Son to be one of us with us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 2 – Fully Human and Fully Divine
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – John 17:6-12
Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God, sent by the Father to do his will. When we come to talk about the incarnation, our human language and concepts are often stretched to breaking point, especially when it comes to the contrast between humanity and deity. Jesus is fully divine and fully human. He is both at the same time, fully God (the incarnate Son) and completely human at the same time (born to Mary). Not half of one and half of the other. Not a mix that creates a different ‘third thing’, that is neither one nor the other but some new substance instead. God took on a human life, not as a shell or a mask, not in outward appearance only, but as a fully incarnated, gestated, birthed, lived and died human being. Jesus was fully divine (as only God can save us), and fully human (because ‘that which is not assumed [i.e. taken on] is not saved’).
One thing the incarnation tells us about God is that he is not afraid to get involved. He’ll get his hands dirty. The coming of the Son was not a half-hearted task undertaken carelessly or ‘cheaply’. There were no half measures. The Triune God directly involved himself in redeeming us and reconciling all creation to himself. He fully entered into our experience, into our world and all its associated networks – physical, cultural, political, social. God became one of us so that we, through the Son’s sacrificial mission, might become part of his family – that we might enjoy the relationship with the Father enjoyed by the Son.
Questions to Consider
How do you understand the fact of Jesus being both fully human and fully divine? Why is this important? How would you explain it to someone?
Prayer
Gracious Lord, help me know you more, help me understand the true depths of your love for us and the way in which you meet us fully where we are and fully as you are. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 3 – Jesus Shows us God
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – John 17:13-19
The Father and the Son are identical in terms of the divine nature. Both persons (and the Spirit as well) possess the full set of attributes that make God, God. This was one of the major theological questions battled over in the early church: the divinity of Jesus and what any possible decision about that would mean for the definition of God. Full divinity was granted of the Son and eventually the Spirit too. Regarding his essence, there is nothing that the Father has that the Son lacks. There is a personal distinction between them such that one can love the other, but they share fully the same divine essence. As we have said before, one God in three persons, with all three persons fully divine and of the same substance.
This means when we look at Jesus, we see God. To see the Son is not to see anyone less than God himself. Not partly God, not a bit like God, not someone who manifests certain characteristics of God. Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God, and He shows us most clearly what God is like. When we look at Jesus, when we encounter Jesus, when he speaks to us, when he shares himself with us, we can be completely confident that it is God that we encounter. Jesus reveals what God is like: not an approximation, not a rough outline or brief sketch, not a watered-down facsimile, but God himself. We see God and we know God because Jesus makes him known. Jesus does what the Father has always been doing: loves and shares himself with us.
Questions to Consider
How has Jesus made known the reality of God to you? What is it about Jesus that has helped you come to know the Father more?
Prayer
Almighty Father, thank you for your presence with us, the way you did not hold yourself back but revealed who you are to us so that we might know you. May such love become known by all. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 4 – Equally and Eternally Divine
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – John 17:20-23
Jesus, the divine Son, is eternally equal with the Father. Throughout history, some people have denied this point (and of the Spirit too). They point to passages where Jesus states that he is inferior to the Father (e.g. John 14:28; Mark 10:18). They sometimes also point to the fact of the Father sending the Son as his messenger, claiming the Father has delegated authority to a lesser vassal, like a President might send an ambassador: someone to speak on their behalf but who is not them, nor equal to them. This heresy is known as subordinationism (the Son seen as subordinate, and of a different, inferior substance to, the Father), and stems from the tension between the Father who sends the eternally, equally divine Son as his emissary. Jesus is eternally equal with the Father; his divinity overrides his role as the Father’s envoy to us.
But Jesus fulfilled that role in an exemplary manner. In his ministry, we see a clear invitation to enter into divine relationship with the Son and with his Father, and also a clear, unambiguous model of how disciples are to relate to the Father within this divine relationship. In the earthly mission of Jesus we see demonstrated the humble devotion and worship that is due the Father, and also the Son’s obedience as the Father’s chosen emissary to the hurt, broken world that he created. The Son is obedient and humble. We too are to be the Father’s devoted, obedient children, continuing the Son’s redemptive mission in the world.
Questions to Consider
What does the Father sending the Son to us tell us about how God works? What does the incarnation tell us about how God might work through us?
Prayer
Loving Father, grant me the strength and wisdom to be more humbly devoted to you, to obey you more and seek your will more and more in the spaces, places and decisions of my life. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 5 – The Reason for Coming
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – John 17:24-26
Why did Jesus come to us? What was the point of the Father sending the Son to us? We saw that the Trinity is a community of love, a love that flows outwards, and that creating others to share that love with was a natural, gratuitous, unforced outcome of the love the Father has for the Son in the Spirit. It was always the intention that such Triune love would be shared with and offered to creation; that the love the Father had for the Son, from all eternity, might also dwell in those who believe in him – that we might enjoy the Son in the same way as the Father always has. To that end, the Father shares all his glory with the Son – and then sends the Son to reveal it and share it with us. The Son shares with us all he has been given by the Father.
Of course, having been created to share in God’s love, we turned away from God, seeking satisfaction in our own twisted loves, preferring our own tortured autonomy rather than God’s freely given love. We were lost, broken, and deluded in our brokenness. We needed rescuing. So it was because of God’s great love for us and his desire for us to experience his love – to experience divine love and in it find our true selves and our true companionship with God and each other – that the Father sent the Son to save us, reconcile us, and transform us, ultimately giving us his Spirit to dwell in us and make us whole in his love.
Questions to Consider
Why did God send the Son to us? Why was it necessary for this to happen? How would you describe the ‘job’ that Jesus was given?
Prayer
Sovereign Lord, thank you for not leaving us alone in our sin and rebellion. That you personally came to rescue us and lead us back to you is the greatest gift we could have. Help me be more grateful for such love. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)