Is subordination within the Trinity really heresy? A study of John 5:18 in context

Trinity Journal, Spring 1999 by Keener, Craig S

B. Jesus as God's Son

Jesus' obedience to the Father would reflect well on him among John's audience and their contemporaries. In an honor and shame culture that highly prized disciplining boys for obedience, the claim that Jesus was "obedient" to his Father was a cause for praise.19 Having already claimed that God is his Father, Jesus explains his own action by means of the analogy of a son who imitates and obeys his father (5:19-20)20 Because the Father loves Jesus (5:20; cf. 3:35; 10:17;15:9;17:23-24), the Father shows him what to do (5:20). Jesus has watched the Father's activity (8:38).

The Son's imitation of the Father's deeds here may suggest the specific analogy of apprenticeship, for Jewish fathers often trained their sons in their own trade. 21 The image of God revealing his works to his special agent, who watches him and learns from him, would have made good sense in an early Jewish framework?

The claim that Jesus acts as God's Son, obedient to the Father, in no way contradicts Jesus' full deity. To the contrary, the image of continuing God's creative work on the Sabbath in this text would strongly imply Jesus' deity. In view of 7:23, where Jesus describes the creative work as making a whole person well on the Sabbath (John 7:23), an allusion to creation probably implies specifically the creation of humanity in Gen 1:26. If so, the background for the Father and Son working together in creation here may well be, "Let us make . . . in our image" (Gen 1:26). This past giving of life would then foreshadow the resurrection (5:24-25), an idea to which the discourse quickly turns.

If such an allusion is in view, the particular wording of Gen 1:26 LXX ((...)) is significant. "Make" ((...)) with (...) as the object appears in John only in 5:15 and 7:23, the latter a comment on this passage.2 The LXX elsewhere declares that God "made humanity," employing this same verb (Gen 1:26, 27; 2:18; 5:1; 6:6, 7; 9:6; Wis 2:23).24 This parallel reinforces the likelihood that Jesus claims deity here.

Nevertheless, this part of the discourse is framed with Jesus' claim not to act "from himself," or on his own initiative or authority (5:19, 30),25 fitting the Jewish conception of the agent who carries out his commission? Jesus elsewhere emphasizes that he does nothing "from himself" (5:30; 7:17-18, 28; 8:28, 42; 14:10), as the Spirit does not (16:13), and that the disciples cannot produce anything profitable from themselves (15:5). Acting "from oneself" signifies independence; by contrast, for John its negation can signify divine inspiration (11:51).27 Thus Jewish tradition emphasized that Moses explicitly claimed to speak only on God's authority, not his own.28

C. Jesus as God's Agent

Few will deny that Scripture speaks of Christ's subordination or obedience to the Father in some sense; but some will argue that this is really beside the point. They argue that such submission of the Son to the Father is plain enough, but that it is functional and temporary, relating to his incarnation and earthly ministry, rather than eternal.29 This is a logically valid objection, but its accuracy must be tested by exegesis of the various passages in question. To be sure, Jesus shared the Father's glory before the world was (17:5); he has always been fully God. But Jesus' submission to the Father did not begin with his incarnation. Often he speaks of the Father "sending" him into the world (e.g., 3:16-17; 10:36; 1 John 4:9; though one could argue differently based on John 17:18), which suggests that, at the very least, he began submitting a little before the incarnation.