John 1:1 and the Jehovah’s Witnesses – Episode 17, Jesus Is Equal with God

If we would understand how John intended us to understand John 1:1c, “and the Word was God” (could he possibly, as Jehovah’s Witnesses assert, mean Jesus was “a god”?), we need to see John’s representation of Jesus in places outside of John 1:1, that is, in the remainder of his Gospel.

Equal with God

When, as recounted in John 5, Jesus heals a man who had been an invalid for 38 years, and does so on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders are incensed and challenge Jesus and his legitimacy as sent from God. Jesus responds this way:

And because of this the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he did these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus responded to them, “My Father is working until now and I too am working.” For this reason then the Jews began seeking rather to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was saying God was his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Jesus answered them, therefore, saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son is not able to do anything by himself, but only what he sees the Father doing, for whatever he sees Him do, these things he likewise does. Because the Father loves the Son and has shown him what He Himself does, and greater works than these He will show him so that you might be amazed. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also to whomever the Son chooses he gives life. For the Father does not judge anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all might honor the Son even as they honor the Father. The one who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Truly, truly I say to you that the one who hears my word and believes in the One who sent me has eternal life and will not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” (John 5:16-24)

Why does Jesus’ statement that the Father is working and Jesus is working too, shock the Jewish religious leaders into seeking to kill Jesus? Because this is blasphemy, if Jesus is a
created being. It is making himself equal with God. What is the working that the Father is doing until now? Well it started with God the Father creating all things and then it continued with the Father upholding all things. He upholds creation (keeping it running, we might say; Genesis 9:8-17; Job 38&39; Psalm 104; Psalm 135; Matthew 10:29-30; Acts 17:28), He upholds Israel forever (2 Chronicles 9:8), He upholds the righteous individual (Psalm 37:17), He upholds the needy (Psalm 140:12), and He upholds David’s throne (Isaiah 9:7). But Jesus does this, as well:

Colossians 1:15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,
whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Are the Jews wrong to believe that Jesus is making himself equal with the Father? That is what the Jehovah’s Witnesses claim:

While properly referring to God as his Father, Jesus never claimed equality with God. (Joh 5:17) Rather, it was the Jews who accused Jesus of attempting to make himself God’s equal by claiming God as his Father. Just as the Jews were wrong in stating that Jesus was a Sabbath breaker, they were wrong in making this accusation. Jesus makes this evident by what he says as recorded in verses 19 through 24—he could do nothing of his own initiative. Clearly, he was not claiming to be equal to God.—Joh 14:28. 

But Jesus himself has said to the Jews, “He [the Father] has given all judgment to the Son, so that all might honor the Son even as they honor the Father.” If the Father wants all to honor His Son as they honor Him, does that not make Jesus equal with the Father? The Jews have not mistaken Jesus in this matter. Yes, Jesus is doing what he sees the Father do, and as John the Baptist said, the Father has sent the Son and given him the Spirit, but that is a function of superior authority, not superior essence or nature. Husbands and wives are equal in essence, nature or substance, but God gives husbands authority over their wives. That does not make wives any less equal to their husbands.

And this is why Jesus can say, in John 14:28, the passage cited at the end of the Witnesses commentary on John 5, “the Father is greater than I am,” not meaning, greater in essence or substance, but greater in authority, and so he does what his Father commands him (14:31).

No, John obviously accepts the conclusion of the Jews that Jesus is claiming to be equal with God. That is why he has included this incident in his Gospel.