June 18, 2023
Power To Overcome Death
“For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”
John 10:17-18 (NASB)
After being on this earth for several years (over a half century), I have noticed that I tend to repeat things I had said once before. Fortunately, I catch myself most of the time before I go on with it. My mom, at 92, does this more frequently as she ages. This is due to the aging process in all of us. I remember once in college, my professor explained why we forget as we age. He said that it is not that we forget, it is that we have a harder time retrieving the information. If you imagine a room full of filing cabinets, each one of them have memories in certain folders. As we age, it is harder to retrieve the information as we have so many filing cabinets in the room. We don’t forget, we just have a harder time accessing the memory. So when we repeat ourselves, we don’t know how many memories we have shared with so many people. This is because we tend to have more friends as we age.
“I lay down My life so that I may take it again…” “and I have authority to take it up again.” Note the two times in these passages Jesus repeats Himself. It isn’t because He has a memory problem though. He is repeating this so all will hear Him very clearly that His sacrificial death was not the end. His death would lead to His resurrection. His resurrection would lead to His glorification. His glorification would lead to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In all these acts, we find Jesus doing these acts for us willingly. “It is impossible for language more plainly and emphatically to express the absolute voluntariness of Christ’s death, such a voluntariness as it would be manifest presumption in any mere creature to affirm of his own death.”[1] Jesus was obedient to the Father’s plan all the way to His death on the cross. When I hear statements like, “When Jesus was on the cross, He had you on His mind,” I find a problem. I believe Jesus’ obedience was to the Father’s plan first, not just for us. He and the Father are One. They are in perfect harmony. The Father’s plan is Jesus’. We are the result of the plan of the Father. As the Son of God laid His life down, He being God-Incarnate has the power to raise it up. No one can kill God; they could only destroy His earthly body. When Jesus said this twice, “I lay down My life so that I may take it again…” “and I have authority to take it up again,” it will cut to the hearts of those who heard His words. To some it will be healing words as Foster says, “Those who follow Him, putting their faith in the Good Shepherd, need fear no evil.”[2] To others it will cut to the heart in blind rejection. Lenski leaves a beautiful picture of the Father’s love: “When offering this commission to his Son the Father appeals to love; by accepting that commission the Son responds with his love. Both the offer and the acceptance lie on the highest possible plane. And now we know how Jesus became our Good Shepherd by giving his live for us, and what it is that makes him such a shepherd. We have looked into both his heart and into that of his Father.”[3]
The Father loves the Son. The Son loves the Father. Both love us and give salvation to us.
[1] Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R., & Brown, D. (1997). Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Vol. 2, p. 147). Logos Research Systems, Inc.
[2] Foster, L. (1987). John: Unlocking the Scriptures for You (p. 116). Standard.
[3] Lenski, R. C. H. (1961). The interpretation of St. John’s gospel (p. 746). Augsburg Publishing House.