He Made Himself Equal to God

Gospel Reflection for Wednesday March 13th, 2024

Icon of The Council of Nicaea, Courtesy of Fr. John Hardon, SJ Archive and Guild.

"Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for what he does, the Son will do also. For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything that he himself does, and he will show him greater works than these, so that you may be amazed. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also does the Son give life to whomever he wishes. Nor does the Father judge anyone, but he has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.” John 5:19-23

The Gospel for today is an important one for the central claim of Catholicism; that Jesus Christ is not just another prophet or great philosopher, but that He is God Incarnate. The entire Catholic faith hinges on this core belief. In the 4^th century, just a few short years after Christianity was legalized by the Roman Emperor Constantine with the Edict of Milan, a heresy called Arianism gripped the empire. Arianism saw Our Lord as not equal to Father, confessing instead that He was ‘of like substance’ with God but still a created being. So much of the empire fell into this heresy that the great Church Father St. Jerome is quoted as saying, “The world groaned and was astonished to find itself Arian.”

The heresy ran so deep that Emperor Constantine, not yet a Christian, decided to call the Council of Nicaea, the very first Ecumenical Council in order to try to fix what had been dividing his empire. It was at this council that, under the brilliant leadership of St. Athanasius of Alexandria, the core tenants of the Nicaean Creed are laid out and Christ’s absolute equality with the Father is confessed. Essentially, Nicaea lays out a Trinitarian Theology which endures until today. Christ is confessed as being consubstantial with the Father, that is, the Church confesses that the Father and the Son are of the same substance.¹

In the passage quoted above, Christ places Himself as equal to the Father and thus incurs the disdain of His Jewish listeners. St. John describes the extent of this disdain in verse eighteen:

“This is why the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the sabbath but also called God His Father, making Himself equal with God.” John 5:18

He made Himself equal to God. Again, this is the central claim of Catholicism. This is the ultimate reason that the Jewish leaders at the time wanted Him dead. While the Romans put Our Lord to death essentially for treason, the motivation of the Jewish leaders was the crime of blasphemy, because He made himself equal to God.

Not shying away in fear for His life, Our Lord emphasizes His equality with the Father in today’s discourse. He speaks of the Father working in Him and doing great things. He claims the ability to raise the dead, something only God can do. He even takes upon Himself the authority of judgment and says that in order to honor the Father, we must honor the Son. These are not light claims. His Jewish listeners would have been gravely struck and scandalized by the words coming from His mouth. This is why He is ultimately condemned to death. These, and other words spread throughout the Gospels are a very clear claim to Divinity for Christ.

Our Lord goes on to say:

“Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” John 5:25

It is by the words of Christ that life is given. This can be taken in two ways: first, Christ is the ‘resurrection and the life’² and so even those who die an earthly death, and yet believe, will ‘come forth to the resurrection of life.’³ But second, a number of Church Fathers interpret this verse to be speaking of those who hear the voice of Christ and are resurrected from sin to conversion in Christ. For example, St. Cyril of Alexandria says:

“The common account then is (as it seems) that the time will come, when the dead shall hear the Voice of Him That raiseth them: and they suppose that it is now too no less present, either as when Lazarus for instance is to hear the Voice of the Savior, or as saying that the dead are those not yet called through faith unto eternal life, who will surely attain unto it, by having received the doctrine of the Savior.”⁴

For us today, these words of the Gospel are even more important. While Arianism may not be flourishing by name, the influence of it is alive and well. Many people claim, as I said above, that Jesus of Nazareth is nothing more than a moral teacher or philosopher, wise as He may be. They deny the miracles of Christ as an elaboration inserted by the Gospel writers. If this were the case, then nothing Christ has given us is mandatory, it places all of His words in the realm of ‘take it or leave it.’

But Jesus of Nazareth was not crucified for being a philosopher. He was not put to death for being a moral teacher. He was put to death because He made Himself to be equal to God. This claim of Catholicism is the claim of Christ Himself.

1. The Council of Nicaea (325) argued between two positions. The Arian view used the Greek Homoiousian, which translates to ‘of like substance’ to show that Christ is a created being though exalted above the normal human persons. The Catholic view used the Greek Homoousian, which translates to ‘of the same substance’ to show that Christ is God in the same manner that the Father is God. In the Latinized rendering of the term Homoousian, we find the familiar term ‘consubstantial.’ This is essentially stating that the Father and the Son are not two separate beings but are one Being. Theologically, the substance of something is what we call its quiddity, or simply, its what-ness, that is, the underlying reality of a thing. The substance of a thing is its definition. In Trinitarian Theology, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three distinct persons but are united as one singular substance.

2. Cf. John 11:25.

3. Cf. John 5:29.

4. St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John.