Copyright © 2004 S P Townsend
The Purpose and Passion of the Messiah
3. The Messiah’s Methodology
Reading: John 5:16-30
On these four Sunday evenings in the month of November we are considering the topic “The Purpose and Passion of the Messiah.” The word “passion” speaks of a heart set on fire. It speaks of an unswerving purpose. It speaks of dedication and determination. It speaks of deep commitment and enthusiasm. It speaks of unquenchable zeal. God says, “I will be zealous for my holy name” (Eze 39:25). What we are thinking about over these few weeks is this: what is it that God is so zealous about, so passionate about, and that His Messiah pursues with such total commitment and determination? What is the purpose and passion of the Messiah?
Why should we do this? There is nothing more important for us to do than to seek the heart of God, to learn to understand the passion that beats within His heart, and then to allow that passion to consume our hearts, minds and lives.
On the previous two Sundays we have considered “The Messiah’s Mission” and “The Messiah’s Manifesto”. Tonight and next week we will look at these two topics:
What was the methodology Jesus followed, his modus operandi?
Jesus claimed unequivocally to be the Messiah, the one whom the prophets had foretold would come to overcome evil and the Evil One. In the synagogue at Nazareth, at the commencement of his public ministry, he quoted the words from Isaiah 61, “He has sent me to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour,” and then said to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Lu 4:18-21 NIV). On another occasion, when speaking to a woman by Sychar’s well in Samaria, he said, “I who speak to you am the Christ” (Jn 4:26).
Again and again he taught the people that the Father had sent him. John’s gospel alone records at least 35 of these occasions.
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (Jn 3:17).
“For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God” (Jn 3:34).
"My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (Jn 4:34).
"Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned” (Jn 5:24).
“The very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me.” (Jn 5:36,37)
“The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent” (Jn 6:29).
“For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me” (Jn 6:38).
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (Jn 6:44).
“The living Father sent me and I live because of the Father” (Jn 6:57).
"My teaching is not my own; It comes from him who sent me” (Jn 7:16).
“He who sent me is true” (Jn 7:28).
“I know him because I am from him and he sent me” (Jn 7:29).
"I am with you for only a short time, and then I go to the one who sent me” (Jn 7:33).
“I stand with the Father, who sent me” (Jn 8:16).
“My other witness is the Father, who sent me” (Jn 8:18).
“He who sent me is reliable, and what I have heard from him I tell the world” (Jn 8:26).
“The one who sent me is with me” (Jn 8:29).
“I have not come on my own; but [God] sent me” (Jn 8:42).
“As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me” (Jn 9:4)
“The one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world” (Jn 10:36)
“That they may believe that you sent me” (Jn 11:42).
“When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me.” (Jn 12:44,45)
“The Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it” (Jn 12:49).
“Whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me” (Jn 13:20).
“These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me” (Jn 14:24).
“They do not know the One who sent me” (Jn 15:21).
“Now I am going to him who sent me” (Jn 16:5).
“I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father” (Jn 16:28).
“This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3).
“They believed that you sent me” (Jn 17:8).
“You sent me into the world” (Jn 17:18).
“May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (Jn 17:21).
“May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me” (Jn 17:23).
“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me” (Jn 17:25).
"As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." (Jn 20:21)
Jesus did not claim to be a teacher with a new philosophy of life. He did not come to say that old religions were defective and that the world needed a new one. He did not come to teach a new code of morality. What he said was, “I have been sent by the Father. I am the promised Anointed One, sent to bring God’s favour to the world and execute God’s vengeance on evil.” You see, so long as the world considers Jesus to be a good teacher, philosopher, moralist, prophet, or founder of a new religion, it can debate his ideas, weigh them against others, and decide which ones to accept or reject. But when it knows he has been sent from God with a crucial message and mission then all discussion has to be thrown out. If he did not come from God then nothing he said can be trusted. But if he did then we have to accept all that he says without question.
The Bible teaches three important aspects of the sending of Jesus: He was sent from heaven; He was sent into the world; and He was sent by the Father.
In his prayer to the Father in John 17 Jesus says, “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began” (Jn 17:5). He came from heaven itself, the very dwelling place of God.
Jesus pre-existed before being born into the world. John says of him, “He was with God in the beginning” (Jn 1:2). Of himself he said, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I am” (Jn 8:58).
He was the one who created all things, who ensured that God’s creative word was fulfilled. John said, “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (Jn 1:3). The apostle Paul wrote, “For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Col 1:16,17).
He was God himself; a person distinct from the Father and the Holy Spirit, yet nonetheless united together with them as one God. John comments on this mystery: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jn 1:1). Paul writes, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” (Col 1:15). Elsewhere it says, “The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being” (Heb 1:3). The psalmist says, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a sceptre of justice will be the sceptre of your kingdom. You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.” (Ps 45:6,7).
Jesus said, “I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father” (Jn 16:28).
He made himself nothing. He did not come wielding the power and authority of his divine being; he came in weakness and servitude. “Who, being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant” (Phil 2:6,7).
He took upon himself our humanity. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (Jn 1:14). He came into this world, not as God, but as man. He fought our battle against sin and the devil as one of us. “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity” (Heb 2:14).
His humanity was in every respect that of ours, with the one exception that he lived without sin. His submission to our weakness extended all the way to death itself. The writer to the Hebrews says, “He shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil - and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Heb 2:14,15). And again, “For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” (Heb 2:17,18).
God sent Jesus on a rescue mission, with a mandate to save the world. “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (Jn 3:17).
He came to fulfil the Father’s purpose and to accomplish His will. “Then I said, 'Here I am - it is written about me in the scroll - I have come to do your will, O God.'” (Heb 10:7, ref Ps 40:7,8). “I have not come on my own; but [God] sent me” (Jn 8:42).
He came with the full weight of the authority of his Father behind his words and actions. He said, “I have come in my Father's name” (Jn 5:43). “And [the Father] has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man” (Jn 5:27).
He came in total oneness with the Father; the Father was with him and in him. “I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me” (Jn 8:16). “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30). “The Father is in me, and I in the Father” (Jn 10:38).
"My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (Jn 4:34). “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me” (Jn 6:38). He never acted independently. He never did his own thing. He never said, “I need space to be myself”. He always acted in unity with his Father, and to carry out the Father’s will. He demonstrated once and for all how a human being can be fully free and yet be fully compliant to God’s will and purpose. In him God’s sovereignty and man’s free will united in perfect harmony.
“For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it” (Jn 5:21). “I seek not to please myself but him who sent me” (Jn 5:30). “The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him” (Jn 8:29). You can decide to do the will of someone else, but to do so out of compulsion, or in spite of your own preferences. Jesus was different: he desired to do what God wanted. The thing that pleased him was the thing that pleased God, so closely united were they in purpose. They shared the same passion.
“I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.” (Jn 14:30). “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love” (Jn 15:10). “Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered” (Heb 5:8). It is almost incredible to think of the King of kings and Lord of lords submitting himself to the commands of another, particularly when such obedience involve intense suffering. Yet this is the way he chose to come.
“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” (John 5:19). Nothing Jesus did was through his own ability; he did nothing by himself, but only acted in partnership with the Father. The devil tempted him to do otherwise. “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread” (Lu 4:3). Act on your own initiative; use some of those divine powers you have to satisfy your own physical longings. But Jesus said, “It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone'” (Lu 4:4). It was the word spoken by God his Father that sustained him, that enabled him to live each moment of each day.
Thank God that he never succumbed, that he never used his own divine power and authority as the Son of God to make his life easier as the Son of Man. Thank God that he laid all that aside (Phil 2:6,7). Because otherwise he would not have fully represented us. He might have defeated Satan as God (which he could have done anyway at anytime he desired) but he would not have defeated him as man, and he would not have been able to be our merciful and faithful High Priest (Heb 2:17,18).
Think about the implications of this. When he changed water into wine it was not something he did by himself, but something he saw the Father was doing. When he walked on water, or when he healed the sick it was not something he did on his own initiative; it was in response to what he saw the Father doing. The Centurion whose servant was sick understood this completely. He said to Jesus, “For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes” (Lu 7:8). He didn’t say “I myself have authority” but “I myself am under authority”. He recognised that Jesus was under authority, and that was why sickness vanished and demons fled. Jesus performed his miracles in his Father’s name (Jn 10:25).
“I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me” (Jn 8:28). “My teaching is not my own; it comes from him who sent me” (Jn 7:16). “I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it” (Jn 12:49). Everything Jesus taught came from the Father. He did not speak on his own initiative, but spoke exactly what the Father revealed to him. The Father even showed him how to say it. When he spoke Zacchaeus’ name (Lu 19:5) it was at his Father’s prompting. When he commanded the storm to be still (Lu 8:24) it was with words the Father provided.
This is why he spoke so often in parables, so that those whom the Father was calling would understand but others would not. He said, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, ‘though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.’” (Lu 8:10 ref Isaiah 6: 9).
“Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you” (Jn 17:7). Everything Jesus had came from the Father. Every resource he used; every word he spoke; every work he carried out; every miracle he performed: all were from the Father. Even those who followed him, his chosen disciples, they too were given to him by the Father. "I have revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word.” (Jn 17:6).
This way in which Jesus achieved this was through the anointing and filling of the Holy Spirit.
“The Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove” (Luke 3:22).
“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit” (Luke 4:1).
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me” (Luke 4:18).
“Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit” (Luke 4:41).
All of these verses show how Jesus depended entirely on the power of the Holy Spirit to fulfil his ministry. Through the Holy Spirit he understood the mind and heart of the Father, and by the power of the Holy Spirit he carried out the Father’s will.
The only resources Jesus used during his earthly mission were those provided by the Father and the Holy Spirit. He fulfilled his mission as the Son of Man, sharing the frailty of our humanity. As man he was anointed by the Holy Spirit. As man he heard the Father’s voice and spoke what the Father wanted him to say. As man he saw what the Father was doing and carried out the Father’s will.
This is why he is such a merciful and faithful High Priest.
“For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” (Heb 2:17,18).
“Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your
thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess” (Heb 3:1).
Copyright © 2004 S P Townsend