Jesus had what we would consider a public relations problem for He didn’t package His message in the most positive way to be accepted by the religious leaders who could encourage acceptance of that message. Instead, His message including His identity as the messenger were contrary to the traditions of the elite. Remember from back when the LORD first identified Himself as the I AM, the Jews held the LORD’s name so sacred as to not pronounce it but rather created euphemisms to use in place of the revealed Name YHWH. While professing to know and represent the LORD to the nation, the elite would never have claimed intimacy with this God but here is Jesus claiming a relationship with the LORD beyond their comprehension:
The elite saw something more profound in Jesus’s claim that what we would hear—to call ‘God His own Father’ is Jesus ‘making’ Himself equal with God. We wouldn’t see that but their understanding of the phrase has more relationship than casual words we might use. If Jesus was telling the truth, not only would He be close to God but He would be equal to God—Jesus would be LORD! This was inconceivable to their perceptions of God and therefore unacceptable no matter what was said.
Jesus expands this God-identity further on in this teaching:
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people. But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.2
‘Name’ has a rather casual meaning in our generation but when Jesus said, “I have come in my Father’s name” it would have fully identified Jesus with the personhood of the LORD, His authority, power, nature, everything that the LORD is. But, without the preconception of the Pharisees, we can believe that Father, Holy Spirit and the Word/Son are all equally LORD. Jesus did come in the identity of the Father, fully and equally representative of all the LORD is in all three identities.
Aren’t we thankful each day that God is not limited to the perceptions of the Pharisees, that Jesus is LORD, and that He is able to save us from our sins. Amen