II Pascha Friday – John 5:30 – 6:2
Listen to an audio podcast of this post at https://www.spreaker.com/episode/pascha-ii-friday-thy-will-be-done-on-earth-as-it-is-in-heaven–65854693
The Lord said to the Jews who came to Him, I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me. If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. There is another that beareth witness of me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true. Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth. But I receive not testimony from man: but these things I say, that ye might be saved. He was a burning and a shining light: and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light. But I have greater witness than that of John: for the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me. And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.I receive not honour from men. But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you. I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? After these things Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias. And a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased.
Throughout Great Lent, the prophetic types in the book of Genesis and the prophetic utterances of the Prophet Esaias prepared us to receive the fullness of God’s revelation in Christ, abundantly made clear in the Gospel according to St. John. A passage like the one we read today overflows with so many truths of the highest order that one is struck dumb with astonishment and hesitates to speak. The Lord Himself, however, today commands those who come to Him to “search the Scriptures,” and therefore let us attempt, the divine grace helping us, that which by man’s power is impossible, that is, to speak adequately of those things concerning which Our Lord speaks perfectly.
The Arians point to the words “Of my own self I can do nothing” as supposed evidence that Christ is dependent, as a creature is, and therefore that He is not God equal to the Father. Refuting this misinterpretation easily, St. Cyril of Alexandria explains that, on the contrary, this expression confirms both the Lord’s divinity and His Incarnation as a man:
Since the Son is of one essence with the Father, by His nature He possesses all the characteristics of Him who begat him and essentially attains to one Godhead with Him by reason of His nature. He is in the Father, and likewise He has the Father in Himself. Thus He properly attributes to the Father the power of His own works, not excluding Himself from teh power of doing them but attributing all things to the operation of the one Godhead. For there is one Godhead in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit… Since he was made man and in the form of a servant, He, Who as God and Lord is the lawgiver, is Himself also made under the Law. Therefore, sometimes He exists as though under the Law and sometimes as though above the Law – and has undisputed authority for both. But He is speaking now with the Jews as a law-abiding man, as one who is not able to transgress the commands ordered from above or venturing to do anything of His own mind that is contrary to the divine law. This is why He says, “I can do nothing on my own authority: as I hear, I judge.” – Commentary on the Gospel of John 2.9
St. John Chrysostom says it like this:
Christ’s meaning is nothing other than this: I do not have a will different and apart from that of the Father. Rather, if the Father desires anything, then I do as well. If I desire it, so does He. – Homilies on the Gospel of John 39.4
As One of the Holy Trinity, the Son has the same will as the Father and the Holy Spirit. As the New Adam, using His perfectly functioning human will, He is completely obedient to, of one mind with, the Father. How could it be otherwise?
We should ask ourselves if, during the Great and Holy Week of the Lord’s Passion, the Lord’s example of obedience to the Father truly humbled us and brought us to compunction of heart, weeping for our own disobedience, shedding the tears of repentance that are needed to prepare the soul to be illumined by the light of the Resurrection. Seeing the Lord of all humbling Himself to the utmost for our salvation, how can we not desire to obey God’s will with all our hearts? St. Augustine reminds us to look to the perfect obedience of the Lord as a reminder to war against our self-will:
The only Son says, “I seek not My own will,” and yet we want to do our own will! See how low the One Who is equal to the Father humbles Himself!…Let us then do the will of the Father, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, for this Trinity has one will, power, and majesty. – Tractates on the Gospel of John 22.15
What happens to people who do not receive the words of Christ unto obedience and salvation, who, despite all that He has demonstrated to us and done for us, do not heed His words and do not obey the will of God so perfectly revealed in Jesus? They dispose themselves to welcome the one who comes “in his own name (verse 43).” Who is this person? St. Hilary of Poitiers makes this clear:
Jesus comes in the name of the Father, that is, He is not Himself the Father and yet is in the same divine nature as the Father. For as Son and God it is natural for Him to come in the name of the Father. But then, when another comes in the same name [ironically] he is the one they will receive. And he is one from whom people will expect glory and to whom they will give glory in return, though he will pretend to come in the name of the Father. By this, doubtless, is signified the Antichrist, glorying in his false use of the Father’s name. He is the one they will glorify, and they will be glorified by him. But the glory of Him Who alone is God they will not seek. – On the Trinity 9.22
Those who reject the path of the Cross, the path of obedience to the Gospel, and seek earthly comfort and approval from men, live by the spirit of Antichrist, and thus dispose themselves to follow one or more of the many antichrists, the false teachers, who have arisen to lead men astray from the time of the apostles until now. Such men, in the last times, will believe in the final and greatest deceiver, who will appear before the Second Coming.
O gracious Lord, risen from the dead, grant us daily tears of compunction for our self-will and disobedience, that we may receive the Gospel into our minds and hearts, and be delivered from delusion and the final destruction that delusion brings. May the Father’s will be understood in our minds and done in the earth of our hearts, as it is in heaven, where, in Thy glorified humanity, Thou dwellest as God with the Father and the Holy Spirit Amen.
