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Snapshot

The responsibilities

As could be observed in the passage under consideration, Jesus only used “I” in the first person singular as a mirror of or a pointer to the Father’s preceding deeds, thought and actions. Therefore, having x-rayed the position of Jesus’ eyes and heart that guarantees shared eternal responsibilities, we are excellently positioned to examine these responsibilities and their attendant privileges. Since He does what He sees His Father do, It is only righteous of the Father to relinquish some duties to Him as both a trust and a reward. For if our wicked earthly fathers do the same, would the righteous judge of the world not do even more?

Shared responsibilities

Infamous to the Jews, but truthfully, Jesus asserts: “For Just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son gives life to whom He wishes.” They both give life. Life flows from the Father through Jesus to anyone who desires to live eternally.
How does Jesus give this life which He has in Him as a flow from the Father? The answers are found in two sublime statements within the passage under consideration, aimed at two dispensations.

First, John 4:25 tells of a current time when the dead in sin will hear His voice and live. Second, there is a future dispensation, where all bodily dead will arise (John 4:28). In both cases, His voice gives life to the sin-dead and dead-dead (or dead-living). The latter is exclusive to Jesus as it preludes the judgment treated as sole responsibility below.

Interestingly, Jesus, too, did not leave us to irresponsibility. Instead, he shares the first responsibility with us as the Father had shared with Him as reflected in Proverbs 18:21, “Life and death lie in the power of the tongue.” As joint-heirs, the sin-dead can either hear and voice and live through it. Or they may listen to our utterances, and their faith dampened or lives corrupted through them.

Were this responsibility not expected to be discharged with utmost faithfulness or our mouth viewed as gifts or talents, Jesus would not require an account of every idle word it utters (see Matthew 12:36). However, with the author jointly guilty, are we truthful to the deed He left us? How are we fairing discharging this privileged shared responsibility? Do your utterances kill or give life? How frequently does our speech give grace unto our listeners?

A gossip can never make a profit with this talent – the tongue. A vain talker is akin to the servant who buried his talent beneath the earth. So a boaster would destroy himself first and everyone around him before he realizes it. But one who has his mouth purified like Isaiah or baptized with the Holy Ghost fire as in Pentecost have sown the mouth into good soil. Or he has traded the tongue for bountiful spiritual profit.

Sole responsibility

Controversial but authentic, Jesus made a profound declaration to these legalistic, rigidly but superstitiously religious Jews. He claimed, “For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son.”

What a pleasure the Son must have been to the Father to have gotten such an estate to Himself! Brother Peter told us that God is a righteous Judge (1 Peter 2:23). Now impartiality is the best state of moral soundness the world’s best judges can attain. But how pure Jesus must have been to have earned the Father’s trust enough to execute such responsibilities.

Jesus did not earn this privileged responsibility of administration of justice as a Spirit being living in heaven. Instead, He earned it for being a Son of Man. This brings to one, two implications.

Jesus, the man-judge

The responsibility of dispensing justice is an exclusive Favor as a son of man, not as a Son of God. Meaning as an earthly judge is known to be earthy, so would Jesus be seen as a glorified man. Honoured not to judge as a Spirit, but as He who has been in similar circumstances; faced similar temptation and challenges, and finally triumphed. So it will be unrighteous for angels, who are sons of God, to judge you and me. They know nothing about temptation or how to cope in a sin-cursed world. They have never been here to understand how horrible it is to live outside God’s favour!

Jesus would rather judge us, staking our acts against His. He will compare how we lived the life we got from Him to how He lived His as a son of man on earth. Our judge will contrast our privileges and responsibilities to His. It is our acts as men compared to His acts when He was a man like us. Indeed, “…those with good deeds to the resurrection of life…”

Jesus, the future judge

And we heard that Jesus did not come to this world to condemn it. Because the verdict of Jesus judgment of this world would have been nothing short of condemnation should He choose to judge the world now. Revelation and Mathew 23;24 relays to us that judgment is scheduled for the next coming of Jesus. Thus, we see that the only person we know that the Father judged is the devil and some promiscuous angels (see the book of James). And if, in fact, Jesus will condemn the world, it is for one reason: that Jesus, the light came into the world, but the world prefers light to darkness. They will not come to light because it reveals and outcasts darkness.

Some thoughts

Jesus did not also reserve the office entirely to himself alone, even though none could question Him if He did. What a selfless Master we have! How glorious is it to be joint-heirs with the Prince of peace! What favour! What might!

In buttress, Paul expressed in the book of 1 Corinthians 4:5 that we shall judge all things; yet, not before its time. Satan is the only unrighteous judge who judges before its time without having all the facts at hand. He condemns us to us and goes before God to accuse us before Him without notice of the drives for our motives.

Furthermore, it is also clear that judgment is not man’s responsibility too. For as unmistakenly bright as daylight is from darkness, so Jesus spoke unambiguously when He said, “Judge not.” Why? We cannot see the motives driving the actions of others even if, at best, all circumstances surrounding a case are known. For example, the untoward children of this world call people fools, and Paul, too, calls his Galatian disciples fools. A foolish person would have concluded Paul to be an overbearingly harsh folk. And his master, Satan, must have gone to accuse Paul of using vulgar words in the bible. I am sure Jesus must have advocated Paul through the passage’s context as they expressed his motives for calling a backsliding person a fool who he truly is. Or how can you have a taste of the world to come and drawback? Is it not folly to exchange a pound coin for a thousand-dollar bill?

Let us be readily advocative, even of a falling brother, rather than being quick to abate the devil in judging and accusing the brethren. You may never know how oft a fallen brother has succeeded, overcoming a temptation. Jesus has not cast such away; should you instead not help make a straight path for your feet and help this lame to a healing stream.

Shared privileges

Heart-warming and rewarding for all indignant contradictions and persecution, severe or meagre, is it that, “So that all will honour the Son just as they honour the Father.” There can be no sole privilege since God and His Son are one and can only be glorified in the trinity. Hence, Jesus concluded, “The one who does not honour the Son does not Honor the Father who sent Him.”

Here the privilege is an honour. Jesus honours the Father by being always obedient to Him: As it is written: “…For those who honour Me, I will honour… (1 Sam 2:30).” And God does righteously to honour Himself through Him – God is glorified as far as Jesus is.

Jesus, being so selfless as usual, extends this privilege to us as disciples. “…when did we find you to give you a cup of water?” asked they who honoured Jesus’ disciples with a cup filled with the charity of gentle encouragements, prison visits, accommodation for the weary disciple… Jesus replied, “As far as you did it to my least disciple.”

O that we may arrogate to ourselves and think of nothing of ourselves! But rather see all accolades for pious Christian conduct, successful ministry as rarely shared privileges with Him. How little this will render us and make grace accessible to us.

So too, when we suffer for His sake, it is a privilege. If it is not, there wouldn’t have been the need to be counted worthy to suffer shame for His name (Acts 5:40-42).”