Jesus Had To Disguise That He Was Our Father With Language
When Jesus says “I say the things I hear my Father say”, he was giving us marching orders to say the things that we heard Him, our Father Jesus say, while here on earth.
His example to us was to always defer to those above you.
John 14:9 If you have seen me you have seen the (your) Father.
The way God/Jesus executed His plan to raise up and enlighten His children required that He, the Father of all the spirits on earth, come to earth and “show us the way”. But that raises ONE MASSIVE PROBLEM – HOW to identify Himself???
Just image what a total LOON WHACK JOB He would have sounded like: “Hi everybody, me, a 30 year old man somehow BEGOT and BORE the spirit burning in all of your chests’ right now – I’M YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER”… Yes, preposterous!! So He had to hide the fact that He IS the Father of all present, and while of course not lying, but rather He had to DISGUISE His true identity. It was really quite genius how He pulled this off.
Jesus’ words seem confusing. He is constantly talking about His Father in heaven, and He seems to want us to have a similar relationship with HIS Father…(?)
The only person who is responsible for you is your direct parent. While your grandparents have a say, and a place in the family, they have no authority over their grandchildren. That is only the job of the parent.
Jesus was showing us that He remained faithful to His Father in heaven, and that we are to give that same faithfulness to OUR Father, who is Jesus.
Jesus had to conduct a masterful word play in order to give deference to His Father above, while double meaning that He would be OUR Father above.
Mat 6:9 “This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
Do you want to KNOW how we know that this prayer is to be directed at Jesus, in Heaven, and NOT His Father? “hallowed be your NAME”. We DO NOT KNOW THE NAME OF HIS FATHER. The only “name” in Heaven that we know, is Jesus.
Jesus Openly Lets The Truth Out ONCE
The story of the woman who touched Jesus and was immediately healed from a long time illness, is very revealing. Repeated in three of the gospels, we see that in all three He calls her “Daughter”…
Matthew 9:20 Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. 21 She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.”22 Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment.
Mark 5:25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. 30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched me?” 31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
Luke 8:42-48 As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. “Who touched me?” Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.” But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.” Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”
So how does an early 30’s man, call this woman, who must be AT LEAST in her 20’s, or beyond, His “daughter”. Obviously He is not claiming to be the father of her flesh. He calls her His daughter because He is the Father of her SPIRIT, the real her.
I Only Say The Things I Hear My Father Say
John 12:49 For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.
John 8:38 I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence.
John 5:19 Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
Jesus came to earth to accomplish 2 things: 1. Live the perfect life. 2. Show us how we can follow His example and live a perfect life.
How did Jesus accomplish living His perfect life? He only said the things He heard His Father say. He only did the things that He saw His Father do.
Since we know what Jesus said and did, while He was here on earth, so now we also can say “I only say the things I hear my Father say, and I only do the things I see my Father do”.
If you are “following the Lamb wherever He leads”, then you are pretty much in sync with saying and doing the things your Father Jesus said and did.
Once you realize that the spirit blazing in your chest right now was BORN/BEGOTTEN BY ALMIGHTY GOD, suddenly, you are somebody. Then you realize that the Spirit of Holiness that you have put on, like the Mind of Christ, is bringing you minute by minute closer to your Father. Suddenly you realize that at the 60 Fold stage, I am enabled with a seed from the body of Jesus. It is hard to image the potential that is bound up in every single one of His seeds. The power to become like the parent of the seed. Finally, you accept the forgiveness for your previous life of blow-it’s and stand fully forgiven. This is the perfect Trinity within you.
Now you are unstoppable. You now know EXACTLY who you are. Now with confidence you can go forth and with the proper amount of faith, you too will replicate the miracles of Jesus, exactly as we were commanded.
John 14:12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
Once you realize that you already have the tools, then all you need is the faith and diligence to put it all together, and be like Dad.
Russell Dibird
Well received… Here I sense a divergence…
Though it is quite true, all major emissaries come in disguises, and nearly every major God in world-wide pantheons have all disguise themselves to teach, test, and experience Humanity…
**Your point here is critical. Though I hesitate to get too far into the “identity of Jesus” because is invariable causes much controversy and leads people down a road which winds too far to either side, per se’…
*When you site the examples of a son mimicking and repeating the things of his father it is more so than many know! For, dare I say, even our own beliefs are not our own… For we learn them from our parents, etc.! Social conditioning, learned behaviors, customs, traditions, laws, etc., etc., etc., al play an essential role in what we think, believe, and consider as right and wrong. Our very personalities are a product of society. Which is why, in my family, we do not teach our wee ones WHAT to think, but HOW TO THINK. The art of thinking is important, what one thinks should be determined by themselves. Just like how my father never gave me any answers to all the most important questions, he gave me the means to discover and learn these for myself. No true Teacher gives their students the answers, but leads them to the necessary experiences for them to KNOW the answers. For you can believe something you’re told, but you can only KNOW anyting by actual experience. We live in a follow-the-leader society, a trend-determined popularity contest. And we see this and more manifest as today’s American supreme identity crisis!!! How can you know who you are if you do not know what you think????
**And this brings your point in full blast! Look to Him, not the T.V.; Follow Him, not some movie idle; Copy His life, not pop cultures latest hero; Look to eternity, not the instant gratification’s of the moment. LOOK INSIDE!
I respectfully disagree. Jesus is NOT the Father. Jesus was IN the Father (as in agreement), Jesus was ONE with the Father (as in One God), but Jesus is not the Father. Think about it for a second, Jesus who is equally God, existed outside what we know of time and space, eternally. He was always just ‘there’. God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. All God, all distinct. You are spreading Modalism. God the Father is purely God, no incarnation. Jesus, his Son, was incarnated and became man. He still belongs to the God family bloodline, figuratively speaking in a spiritual sense, which is why he can say those things of ‘I AM’