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It is good to see you, gentlemen. Today we are to study chapters five and six of the Gospel by John. We saw on our last occasion that the bulk of the Gospel of John is the record of four journeys which our Lord made to Jerusalem and then back again north to Galilee. In that respect, John is different from the synoptic gospels, for in their record of our Lord's ministry, they concentrate on his ministry up north in Galilee, and then have him come on one great journey at the end down to Jerusalem.
John tells us of things that our Lord did in Galilee, but his, uh, peculiarity is that he concentrates on the four journeys that our Lord made to Jerusalem, and then back again to Galilee. Historically, this is important because these journeys to Jerusalem were made on the occasion of the religious feasts, Passover, Feast of Booths, and so forth.
And as a godly Jew, he was, of course, required by the Old Testament to go at least three times a year down to Jerusalem to celebrate the feasts of the Lord. John's record shows him doing precisely that. Last occasion, therefore, we spent our time thinking about the first journey to Jerusalem and back again to Galilee.
And found it could be summed up, if we wish to sum it up, as our Lord's evaluation and critique of his nation's worship and service. Now we come today to the second of the journeys, first down to Jerusalem, and then what happened back up north again. And I submit to you that these two chapters, five and six, present Christ to us as, in the first place, the source of life.
And then in chapter six, the means of life. The gospel as a whole, we remember, records certain signs which our Lord did. Though, of course, he did many more than are here written in John. But it explicitly tells us that these signs are recorded, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. That raises, of course, the question, what do you mean by the term the Christ and the Son of God?
So that if you should happen one of these days actually to give a gospel of John away to one of your unconverted friends, with the hope that it might persuade him that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and he should turn around and ask you, but what do those terms mean? Do you mean he is the Christ, the Son of God? You'll say, uh, well, it would be helpful if you could, uh, begin to explain, if not what you think they mean, what John tells us they mean. So in these two chapters, John will tell us, in part, what the terms the Christ, the Son of God, mean.
And we can sum them up. In chapter five. John presents Christ as the source of life, just like God is the source of all life. Then in chapter six, he presents Christ as the means of life. We need to grasp what the terms mean. And last week, as I was warning you, in all honesty of what you face this week, I used an analogy to bring home what the terms mean, the source of life and the means of life.
The analogy I used was that of physical life. To get physical life, you don't first start by eating bread and butter. We get physical life as a gift at conception and then birth. Get it to gift from a source, the immediate source, our parents, the ultimate source, God, our creator, the source of life. But physical life received as a gift from a source has, as we know, constantly to be maintained by the aforesaid bread and butter and other such things according to your taste.
It's not enough to have life from the source. You will need that life maintained by the means of life. And in chapter six, John presents us with Christ as the bread of life, the means of life. Just to show that I'm not arbitrarily imposing these, uh, labels on the two gosp- on the two chapters. Let's look at chapter five, verse 26. For as the Father has life in himself, so gave he to the Son also to have life in himself.
Those simple terms are nonetheless profound. What does it mean to have life in himself? That doesn't mean as God is alive, so Jesus is alive. God has life in himself in the sense that he didn't have to get life from any other source. He has life in himself. In that sense, we don't. We have to get our physical life from a source somewhere outside of ourselves.
God doesn't have to get his life from anywhere else. God has life in himself. So also here our Lord tells us, he gave to the Son also to have life in himself. He is the source of life. Chapter one, of course, tells us the very same thing in its introductory words. It says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was nothing made that was made. In him was life. That is to say, he was the source of all life. Though there are multitudinous different forms of life in this universe, the claim is that he is its source. The implication of that for the gospel message, we shall see as presently we come to study chapter five.
Christ is the source of life. In chapter six, he is presents se- presented, he presents himself as the means of life. Chapter six, verse fifty seven, As the living Father, now notice the adjective. This is not added by John the Evangelist for making it sound good, to say an odd adjective thrown in here and there to show, show we are the master of adjectives when we need to use them. Here it is significant as the living Father sent me, and I live by reason of, because of the Father.
The Father is the source of life. You notice how carefully he phrased himself in chapter five. He didn't just say, I am the source of life, but the Father has given the Son to have life in himself. So now he declares he lives by the Father, because of the Father, and draws the analogy that we who trust him and eat him, to use his phrase, so he that eateth me, he also shall live because of me.
We owe our ongoing Christian life to Christ. As he was in daily and eternal fellowship with the Father, lives because of the Father, so we live because of him. Now, lest you see, should think I'm saying something very strange and doubtfully evangelical, let me remind you of what Colossians says. We are to set our m- thoughts on things above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.
Do you see? Because we died with Christ, we're risen with Christ. And Christ is above, therefore set your thoughts on things above, where Christ is, do you see? And then says he, and when Christ, your life shall appear. Christ is our life. And in practical terms, gentlemen, you can see at once how significant that is, is it not? It's not enough to come to Christ and receive Christ from, receive life from him, and then say, well, thank you very much, Lord, uh, you've given me eternal life.
Now I shan't need you. I'm expecting to live down here for the next sixty five or seventy years, you see. So thank you, I've got eternal life, so I shan't need much to trouble you. I've got other things to think about and do, you see. Uh, uh, while I've got to make the use of my sixty years on earth, and uh, can't always be praying, of course not. A- a- a- and so I thank you for the gift of eternal. I shan't need, I'll meet you in glory, Lord. That is a false concept, isn't it? We don't have any life apart from Christ. Christ is our life.
Do you see? And our Lord, uh, uh, uh, wa- uh, tells us straight, you see, in chapter six, verse fifty three, it is. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have not life in yourselves. We have no independent source of life. For Christ is our life. So that is the main, uh, lesson we shall draw from chapters five and six of John.
Christ, the source of life in chapter five. Christ, the means of life in chapter six. It is an interesting thing to notice the order in which those two lessons are given us. One of the first modern translations, but then, gentlemen, I'm aware that you are so modern that this translation that I shall mention to you is positively antique. Mm. Somewhere about the nineteen twenties or thirties it came about.
It was called Moffat's translation, you see, and was a modern effort to put the English into modern lang- to the Greek into modern language. And Moffat held, according to source theories current in his day, that Jo- John's, John's gospel chapters five and six had somehow got muddled up, and they made no sense chronologically as they stand. And really, in the original, chapter six came first and chapter five, that is the contents thereof, came second. What a lot of nonsense that was, was it not?
Shall I put it to you on physical terms again? Which came first, your conception and birth, or your eating bread and butter? See, and John will have put these things in the order in which we find them. But it is important spiritually. Because there are two grave mistakes made over this matter. Christ, our life, yes. There are dear folks, they want to please God. They think the way of salvation is to follow Saint Thomas of Kempy and meditate on Christ and love Christ and, uh, feed on Christ.
Marvelous. If you ask them, are are you saved? Have you got eternal life? Well, no, they wouldn't be sure, do you see? They're thinking that the way of salvation is to think about Christ and try to be like Christ and have fellowship with Christ in the hope that Christ th- will so improve them that eventually they might be accepted into God's heaven. They're trying to fulfill John chapter six without having been through John chapter five. You can't feed on Christ until you have let Christ give you life. There are others at the other extreme.
They are so sure that, uh, once you have received Christ, you can never be lost. That they think it's enough to have come to Christ once and received him. Now you're born again and on the way to heaven, and whether you, uh, daily live with Christ or not, well, in the end, doesn't matter, does it? Because in nineteen hundred and seven, the fifth of July, uh, eight thirty p.m., I kneeled by my bed and received the Savior, you'll see. So what I've done since then doesn't really matter because once saved, all saved. And so people need to see that chapter five has to be followed by chapter six.
Christ, the source of life. Christ, the means and maintainer of life. So, um, uh, these two chapters then. We notice that chapter five is begun by a miracle. We notice that chapter six is begun by two miracles. And we shall have to ask on each occasion, what has the miracle to say, and what is its connection with the discussions that follow?
So let's begin by looking at chapter five and the miracle there recorded. Verse three. Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool. John is writing for people who perhaps have never been to Jerusalem, and therefore he needs to tell them there is in Jerusalem, if you should ever happen to go, you know, you've not been, but never mind. These were the days before cheap tourists, you see. Uh, uh, uh, there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, was called in the Hebrew Bethesda, having five porches.
In these lay a multitude of them that were, and my translation says sick. And surely they were sick in the sense that, uh, uh, uh, uh, sick means ill. Do you see? But the Greek word literally means to be weak, to be without strength. It's the word you medics will know, uh, uh, in such compounds as neurasthenia. Asthenia, weakness of the neurons, the nerves, julie, as stenos, a meaning negative, stenos is strength, without strength, it is weak.
And you will notice that the particular illnesses, diseases that are here me- mentioned are disabilities, blind, cannot see, halt, and withered. Weak. people. And a certain man was there which had been thirty and eight years in his infirmity. We know the story, we needn't dwell upon its details. Some manuscripts of the New Testament insert at this point an explanation of what it was that troubled the water.
You'll see. Uh, and explains that when the water was troubled, those that got down first into the pool were healed. Uh, and so verse seven, the sick man answered Christ when our Lord said, would you like to be made whole? He said, I have no man when the water is troubled to put me into the pool, but while I am coming, another steps down before me. Now, some manuscripts have an explanation of what it was that troubled the waters. And those manuscripts generally have that it was an angel that came down and troubled the waters.
But that explanation of what troubled the waters is, from a textual point of view, very doubtful. And most translations omit it. Even such a one as John Nelson Darby, celebrated in for other reasons, but was a very good, a very knowledgeable for his day textual critic, knew and could cite his manuscripts very well, and in the larger edition of his English translation has footnotes where he will tell you why he put certain things in because they were, uh, to be found in such manuscripts, and why he left other things out because they weren't to be found in the better manuscripts.
And so give you honestly the evidence, the manuscripts of the evidence, and uh, uh, manuscripts of the, uh, of the uh, text, and therefore, if you uh, wish uh, to hold a different view from him, he will offer you the evid- the manuscript evidence, do you see, for you to make up your own mind. Since Darby's day, papyri galore have been discovered, some of them very early, and it is a good and godly thing if we reverence the word of God, to, uh, spend some time thinking about the manuscripts from which we get our printed Bibles and their comparative worth.
So we needn't discuss what it was that troubled the water. There have been those that have suggested that into this pool of, uh, Bethesda, uh, there was an inlet of water from another source that, uh, would have been, uh, highly charged mineral water. Uh, when, uh, the thing, uh, came in, the water was troubled by this inlet. The strength of value, whatever value there was in the chemicals, would eventually dissipate. But again, that is speculation.
Let's content ourselves this morning with what the thing was. The man had been for thirty eight years there, on and off at any rate, trying to get in when the water was there. He was too weak to use this means of healing. Now, it is the fact that the Lord has, in his mercy, put into nature all sorts of means of healing. So, amongst other things, there is a spa, or used to be a spa, down beyond Bellinger Hinch somewhere in the interior of the country.
And those who were ill would go on a pilgrimage to this spa, you see, in the, into the interior, uh, a- a- and take the waters. There's another such thing in Bath, where the Romans even built a thing to contain the spa waters, and another in Harrogate. But there are all sorts of things in life, aren't there? You'll see the dogs and the cows, uh, uh, uh, uh, dogs will eat a certain grasses when they don't feel too good. And all sorts of medicines. Indeed, most of our medicines come anyway from herbs and things that have then had their essence extracted and applied in pill form, do you see?
It's the mercy of God. And incidentally, gentlemen, it is not a mark of a high spirituality that we neglect the means of healing. There have been times in history of the Christian church when people have felt that if they're really spiritual, they wouldn't go to a doctor. Well, there may be other reasons for not going to doctors, but nothing to do with spirituality, to see, and just rely upon faith, and that was very spiritual. That isn't very spiritual, any more than you may expect God to send down food out of heaven, and you just sit at the table and open your mouth and it falls through the ceiling.
We have to go and get the stuff and cook it and eat it. So when it comes to the healing properties that are in our world, uh, it is not spirituality nu- to neglect them. Do you see? Though I'm not denying that God may be pleased sometimes supernaturally to heal. So in the mercy of God, there was this pool here, and according to the, uh, text, uh, some people found benefit therefrom and were healed. The man's plight was such, however, he was so weak he couldn't use the means of healing.
So far then, the literal miracle. It seems to me, uh, uh, justifiable, at any rate, to use it as a parable. Because the very same word is used of us, is it not? It's one of the forms that sin takes, according to Romans chapter five. Sin takes many different forms. Ungodliness, enmity with God, and so forth and so on. But one of them is weakness.
While we were yet weak, Christ died for the ungodly. And s- that's Romans five. and similarly Romans eight. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh. That is precisely the word that is used here of these people. They were sick, that is, they were weak, blind, halt, withered. Do you see? Now, of course, Galatians chapter three and verse twenty one tells us that if the law, the law of Moses, the Old Testament law, could have given life, then righteousness would have been by the law.
But the law can't give you life. It is true that God's law is healthy, good, spiritual. If you follow its precepts, it will guide you into healthy forms of living. But la- the law can never give you life in the sense of spiritual life, eternal life. Why not? Because we're too weak. What the law couldn't do, in that it was weak through the flesh. It never could save us, therefore.
We were too weak to use the means. And it is a, a, a, a dramatic, isn't it, and very, uh, true to life, uh, description here. But when our Lord went to that man and knew he'd been there for thirty eight years, trying to use this means of healing, but never succeeding, and said to him, would you be like to be made whole, made well, complete? The man replied, I have no one to put me into the pool. This is a vivid illustration of what many religiously minded people imagine Christ has come to do.
Salvation through Christ, of course, or salvation through Christ. But when you examine it, what they're thinking Christ has come to do is this, to come and help them keep the law as they should, so that when it comes to the final judgment, they might have a chance of passing it. Of course, you cannot pronounce the result until the final judgment. True is, I mean, it is true in some sense of undergraduates, you know. They have the very, very best of, uh, professional teachers, of course, to help them.
And I can tell you in my experience, most of them, at any rate, were keen on seeing the young, uh, upcoming get through their final exams, you'll see. But you couldn't, you couldn't, uh, be absolutely certain. You'll see, the, the tutors were there to help. But if the students in Jolly Well didn't do the work, they didn't get through. Yeah? People imagine Christ has come to do that, give them a helping hand to get into the pool, give them a helping hand to keep the law.
And so they will gradually improve. And though, to be honest, at the moment they confess they've not improved enough, they hope life will last long enough so that Christ will eventually be able to help them enough to get through the final judgment. That is a fundamental misconception of what Christ has come to do. To put it in the terms of this incident, he hasn't come to give sinners a helping hand to get into the pool, to keep the law, and thus be saved. He's a source of life. And when the man said, I have no one to put me into the pool, our Lord didn't reply, well, I will, you know, because I'm the strong son of God, and I'll give you immense help.
Pool? I don't need any pool. Get up! And the man got up and walked. The instantaneous salvation, because Christ is the source of life. Now it was a Sabbath day, John explains, when our Lord, uh, uh, healed this man and told him to take up his bed and walk. So the Jews, verse ten. Now do notice once more that so often in the Gospel of John, the term the Jews very often means the people that lived in Judea, as distinct from Israelites who lived in Samaria or up in Galilee.
These were the Jews then. Said unto him that was cured, it is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for thee to take up thy bed. But he said, he made me whole, the same said unto me, take up thy bed and walk. They asked him who it was. He didn't know because Jesus had gone away. Jesus finds him in the temple and says to him, behold, thou art made whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee. Notice that little remark that John has recorded. Instantaneous salvation by Christ does not imply antinomianism.
I am to be congratulated on my grasp of theological language. Antinomianism, as you know, gentlemen, is saying that the law doesn't matter, and you don't have to keep it, and you can break it, and it doesn't matter. That's antinomianism. And there are many people who imagine that if you can be absolutely sure that you've received salvation from Christ and you have eternal life, that this would mean that thereafter you think sin doesn't really matter, that doesn't matter how you behave. That is false, as the epistles show. And as our Lord's remarked to this man, the fact he'd been cured didn't mean he was free now to go and sin again as much as he liked.
Which seems to imply that his paralysis, his physical paralysis, had been the result of some physical sin. The man knew that it was Jesus. Notice on that what ground it was he noted that, and went and told the Jews. And for this cause did the Jews persecute Jesus, because he did these things on the Sabbath. Now, this matter will come up again when our Lord cu- uh, gave sight to the blind man in chapter nine.
He did it on the Sabbath. Why did he deliberately rub the Jews the wrong way up when he could easily have done it on a Sunday or a Monday? Man had been there for thirty eight years. He wasn't what you call a, a, a critical case, was he? What would it matter if he'd have left him another day? Why do it on the Sabbath when user-friendly and all that and not offending anybody, um, he goes and does it on the, on the Sabbath. Why? Well, he gives the reason. So now we have come from the account of the miracle, tried to understand it literally, and then as a parable too.
Now we come to our Lord's explanation of why he did it on the Sabbath. Jesus answered, my Father works even until now, and I work. We notice the terms, my Father. The Jews are going to take him up on that. First the very next verse. He also called God his own father, making himself equal with God. My further- father works even until now.
I suspect that the Greek would be better translated by saying, my father has been working and is still working now. Mm-hmm. If you have asked a young lady, uh, and she agreed to date you, gentlemen, not that I have any experience of such things, but... and you agree to meet her outside, uh, uh, uh, uh, the city hall at, uh, 7 o'clock, and there she is, and you don't turn up till a quarter past eight. Now, if she's French, she will say to you in French, I am here since a long time.
Je suis ici depuis longtemps. I am here. Now, we wouldn't say that. We have to excuse the French for talking like that. We say we have been here, I have been here for a long time and still am, of course. I think this is the same idiom. Greek has it as well as the French. My father is working, yes, but has been working. It's never ceased working. Right up to this point. You say, but half a minute, half a minute, half a minute. Um, doesn't Genesis one tell us, or Genesis two at least, that on the seventh day God rested from all his work which he had created and made?
Yes, gentlemen, it does. And that is true. God ceased from all his work of special creation. But thank God he didn't stop the work of maintaining the creation he'd made. You say that's automatic. No, it isn't. Hebrews chapter one says that our blessed Lord upholds things by the word of his power. That doesn't mean he sh- he he he upholds it because he shouts a command and again in a loud voice. He upholds things by the word of his power, by his powerful word, by his input of energy.
In him, all things hang together. In him, do you see, uh, he upholds it all things, and upholding all things, leading them to their, uh, designed conclusion. That word in Hebrews, he upholds all things, this is Hebrews, is the word, Greek word for carry. Our English word bear. But it carries off, uh, has often the connotation that you carry something to its destination. So our Lord upholds the universe, do you see?
And from the very start, God has been working, upholding the universe he's made. And thank God, having made the universe and upholding, he he he still upholds it, and from time to time redeems part of it. Mm-hmm. And the work of redemption has to go on. Our Lord brought it home to the Pharisees and said to them on another occasion, when they were objecting to his having done something on the Sabbath, he said to them, which one of you, having an ox or an ass, and it's fallen into a, a pit or a well, doesn't rush at once and take him out on the Sabbath?
Well, of course so. For these states of emergency, when human life was in danger, then even the Jews would have agreed that you may break the Sabbath if a life is in danger like that. Mm-hmm. So our Lord, now explaining why he did it on the Sabbath. His father has been doing it all the way along the line. So if it comes to a miraculous healing, you say, uh, praise the Lord to, to, to, to save your, your loved one.
God says, yes, I'll do that, but wait, oh no, this is Sunday by their time, this is Saturday by their time, it's a Sabbath. I must wait. No, think not. Mm-hmm. My Father therefore worketh hitherto, and I work. What the Jews picked up from it was not only that he, according to them, had broken the Sabbath, but he called God his Father, making himself equal with God. Our Lord doesn't deny the deduction, and now we'll give, uh, state it, his equality with the Father in the next big paragraph, and then at the end of the chapter, he will give the evidence that his claim is true.
But let's stay for a moment with this notion of Sabbath. What was the Sabbath for? Two accounts of the Sabbath are given, are they not? Exodus, chapter twenty you shall keep the Sabbath unto the Lord.
It wasn't then simply that on the day of Sabbath they could rest, though that was one of its purposes, that they might rest. It was that they kept the Sabbath unto the Lord. So whereas they worked six days of the week intent on their own work, on the Sabbath they might cease their own work so that they could concentrate their thoughts and thinking on the Lord. And in Exodus twenty, in that account of the Sabbath, they are to keep the Sabbath unto the Lord and remember that in six days God made the u- uh, universe and the earth and all that is therein and rested on the seventh.
Thus providing a pattern of work and rest. That is a vastly healthy thing to remember, gentlemen. I have to remind myself of it now and again, to sit back and stop working and then come to the awareness, did you know this, if I died today, the world would carry on. It's a shocking thought, isn't it? Absolutely shocking. Fact is, I didn't make the place. I didn't create the show.
Even my work depends on God's having made the world universe anyway, and made me as well. But what a burden lifts off our shoulders when we rest and, uh, take a Sabbath unto the Lord, that he that made it, he's ultimately responsible. He's ultimately responsible for me. To discover God as creator.
I was brought up, and rightly so, my family and my assembly emphasized to me God as redeemer. That was wonderful. But in, as the years have gone by, I've had to supplement it with coming to realize God as my creator. Therein is the basic gospel. Do you see? The Sabbath was meant that you should re- uh, to keep it unto the Lord. And then, of course, Deuteronomy five gives us the other reason for keeping the Sabbath, that you once were slaves in Egypt, and God has redeemed you.
And it is very important to sit back, isn't it, from all our works, even our spiritual works, our work for the Lord, as we call it, to remember that it all stems from God as our redeemer. There wouldn't be any work for us to do at the spiritual level if it wasn't God who started it all by his redemption. And so to make time in life for God to loom large. And we come to rely upon him and consider his glory and his majesty and his strength.
For God commendeth his love towards us, in that while we were yet weak, Christ died for the ungodly. In doing it on the Sabbath, Christ wasn't giving an example merely of the good works that you should do. He was demonstrating himself to be son of the Father, and is about to explain to them that as the Father has life in himself, so the Son is given to the Son to have life in himself.
Source of the universe as much as God the Father is the source of the universe. And come now to save us. Thus much, therefore, we've had the miracle, thought of it literally, and then of its implications as an enacted parable. Secondly, our Lord's explanation for doing it on the Sabbath. Now we're going to get the great statement, the profound statement. This is, uh, verses nineteen onwards down to verse twenty nine.
The great statement from the lips of our Lord of his equality with the Father. Sparked off, of course, by the Jews now being, uh, persecuting him and sought to kill him indeed, because he called God his own father, making himself equal with God. Instead of retracting that or saying you've got the wrong ins- idea, I'm not claiming to be equal with God, now follows a paragraph in which our Lord states and restates his equality with the Father.
So let us take up in verse nineteen, the beginnings of what he says, and then we consider- consider the rest of it in our second session. Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing. Statement one. But now look at statement two. For what things soever he doeth, that is the Father doeth, these the Son also does in like manner.
Now, that is a very balanced statement, is it not? The Son can do nothing of himself. Within the Godhead, it is not the Son who is the initiator. It's the Father who initiates. The Son can do nothing of himself. But you must balance that by the next statement. But whatever things you'll see he sees the Father doing, whatever the Father does, these the Son also does, and does them not as a sort of a pale reflex- reflection, so that, uh, your five-year-old, six-year-old sees you, gentlemen, um, uh, with the bonnet of your
car up, and you're mending the car somehow or other, something gone wrong. And then your five-year-old takes his toy car and lifts the bonnet on that, and he's mending his car, you see. Okay, you can see the analogy, can't you? But he's not doing it in exactly the same way as you're doing it with your car, huh? But whatsoever the Father does, these the Son does in like manner. If God makes the sun to rise, so the sun makes the sun to rise. And how is that?
First, the words of verse twenty would save us from mere philosophical analysis of the Trinity, wouldn't it? There is no jealousy within the Trinity, each eyeing the other in case one should get out of place or something. The Father loves the sha- Son and shows him all things that himself doeth. The Father has no secrets from the Son. And greater works than these, than curing a bi- a a a lame man at the pool, will he show him, that he may marvel.
Notice the ongoing showing by the Father to the Son. Greater works than these will he show him, that you may marvel. Gentlemen, as we study the scripture today and in the days to come, do get ready to be surprised, marveling.
I know there's a lot of tough work to be done in the study of scripture, but old gentlemen, don't count it beneath your dignity to let other folks see that you marvel at the wonders of scripture, marvel at the person of Christ. Surprise upon surprise, and how suppose you you're going to endure eternity anyway when a surprise will meet you af- a- a- around every corner of every street, if there are streets. That you may marvel. As to the person of Christ, of course.
And who Jesus is. So there is the general statement of his equality with the Father. Christ will now proceed to expand that and draw attention to two particular areas that are relevant to this particular situation. But let's take a break there, uh, and refresh ourselves.
