My Father Is Greater

May 22, 2022

You have heard Me say to you, “I am going away and coming back to you.” If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, “I am going to the Father,” for My Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe (John 14:28-29).

The heresy that the Holy Spirit is subordinate to Jesus Christ, and that Jesus Christ is subordinate to God the Father, is just that - heresy. Scripture teaches that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one in essence, character, nature, and purpose. Modalism, which teaches there is only one God, but He reveals Himself in the Old Testament as Jehovah, in the Gospels as Jesus Christ, and in the post-Gospels as the Holy Spirit, is also heresy. Then how are we to understand passages like John 14:28?

Jesus was not speaking of Himself in His essential Being as the Christ, but in His humbled, human position as Jesus. (Philippians 2:5-8) Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond-servant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. As Christ in glory, before His incarnation as a human being, He was in the form of God and equal with God; He was of the same essence as God the Father, and was equal in all other aspects of the Father. It was when He willingly set aside certain prerogatives as Christ, and became a human, Jesus the Christ, that His position made Him subordinate to the authority and will of the Father. But He remained equal with the Father in all other aspects as true deity - truly God.

(Colossians 2:8-9) Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Satan would have us believe the lie that Jesus Christ was a creation of God, just as God created the angels. Not so. (John 1:1-3) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. The word ‘was’ is ain, which means to exist without a beginning; to be eternal. Christ always existed as the Word of God, He always existed ‘with’ (pros, which means ‘face to face’ or ‘in the very presence of’) God, and He always was (ain, existed as) God. Furthermore, all things were made through Him. Only God can create, and what is created cannot in itself create anything. So, Jesus Christ was not, and is not a creation of God, but is the ‘fullness’ (playromah, ‘that which is filled completely’) of the Godhead in a human being.

For Jesus to say that the Father is greater than He is, is to say that in His position as a human being, He willingly submitted Himself to the authority and will of the Father. But He was, and is, God as the Father is God and as the Holy Spirit is God - not 3 Gods, but 1 God in 3 Persons. Amen.

Pastor

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