Far from avoiding the issue brought up by Jesus’ accusers in John 5:18, Jesus embraced their reaction. Did he make himself God? Well, yes and no. No, he didn’t **make** himself God in the sense he wasn’t God prior to his unveiling himself. How so? It is because he is God in that God is his personal Father. In other words, God may be Father of mankind through creation or, as in the case of the Jews, because under the Mosaic Covenant they became his chosen people (cp. John 5:17), but the One who became Jesus (John 1:14) was his Son in the literal sense (John 1:1). Being an image of God (Genesis 1:27) isn’t a passive matter, such as looking in a mirror and beholding one’s image. Rather, it is a deliberate function, like one acting out of his own integrity or out of his own character. “Unless the Son sees the Father working, the Son doesn’t act” (John 5:19). It is because the Son sees the Father working that the Son works, and in doing so, he reveals the Father to the ignorant (cp. John 1:18). In other words, the Son is the Father’s express Image (cp. Hebrews 1:3).
One may try to say that Jesus is just being a better image of the Father than his creatures (cp. Genesis 1:27), but this isn’t what the text is saying. We need to consider the whole word of God and not draw our truth from a single text. For example, Jesus elsewhere tells us that no man knows the Father but the Son and those to whom the Son has revealed the Father (Matthew 11:27). Jesus is the **only** one who knows the Father. All others are as dead men, unable to know anything about him, unless they believe what Jesus reveals about him. The fact is, Jesus is the **only** true image of God (Hebrews 1:3), and we are able to be God’s image only by believing in and following Jesus.
Moses once asked to see the glory of the Lord (Exodus 33:18), and the Lord passed by him, and Moses saw his glory (Exodus 33:22-23; 34:5-8), and when he did the skin of Moses’ face began to shine, but he didn’t realize it, until others saw it and told him (Exodus 34:29-30). Therefore, he put a veil over his face, during those times when he appeared before the people (Exodus 34:33), but he removed the veil, when he was in the Lord’s presence (Exodus 34:34). The veil was used not to hide the glory of the Lord, but to keep others from seeing that glory fade away, which characterized the covenant, whose glory would also end (2Corinthians 3:13; cp. Hebrews 10:1-9).
Jesus, on the other hand, is the face of God (2Corinthians 4:6), whose glory does not fade. So, we are able to gaze at Jesus’ unveiled face and be changed into that image that we see (2Corinthians 3:18; John 1:18), and we are able to do so, because we, who had been dead in sin to spiritual things (Ephesians 2:1, 4), have been made alive in Christ (John 3:3; cp. Ephesians 2:5; Romans 8:10). Moreover, we, too, are able to say with Christ, unless the Father works (manifested by the works of Jesus) we can do nothing (John 5:19), or put another way, we do the work of God, because we do what Jesus does (WWJD). By believing Jesus, we believe the Father, and by imitating Jesus, we become the images of God.
“For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel.” (John 5:20).
A common misconception concerning John 5:20 is that Jesus pointed to greater works in the sense that future works would be even more astonishing than the healing of the man-made-whole, but this isn’t so. Whether the work done is healing (John 5:8-9) or raising the dead (John 5:21) or judging mankind (John 5:22), all are miracles are done by the Almighty power of God. So, how could other works be greater than the works of God? Rather, the Greek word (G3187) translated greater should be translated more, as it is in James 5:20 (by many translations). The miracles are greater only in the sense that they would be more abundant during the Apostles’ ministry, and this would be done that men would marvel or be in awe of what God was doing. Notice that Jesus told his enemies or those who didn’t believe that he was able to see God act, and he (Jesus) would act out in the flesh what he saw God do. Nevertheless, the acts Jesus would do were deeds no mere man was able to do. Therefore, those same acts would be empowered by, and, therefore, approved by, God! So, in the near future more and more works of God would be manifest by Jesus, and men would wonder (cp. John 11:47). We who are the images of God through beholding Jesus (2Corinthians 3:18), have a part in the work of God by believing in (John 6:29) and imitating Jesus, doing those good deeds we are able to do, which God committed to us (1John 3:23; 5:1, cp. Ephesians 2:10).
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