Verse 18
The Jewish leaders did not miss the force of what Jesus was claiming, namely, equality with the Father. Liberal interpreters who say that Jesus never claimed to be God have a difficult time with this passage. John here noted that these Jews had already been trying to do away with Him. These claims increased their efforts.
To the contemporary western mind the idea of "son" connotes a different person, but the ancient eastern mind thought of a "son" as the extension of his father. The word connoted identification with rather than difference from. The ancients considered a good son as one who followed in his father’s footsteps exactly.
Jesus was equal with God in His essence. Both the Father and the Son are deity. However Jesus was not equal with the Father in His subsistence. The Son was subordinate to the Father in this respect. This distinction is one that the Jewish leaders struggled with and that Jesus proceeded to clarify partially.
"It would seem that in their eyes God could exalt a man to be as God, but whoever made himself as God called down divine retribution on himself. They saw Jesus in the latter category." [Note: Beasley-Murray, p. 75.]
The emphasis in this section of the text is on Jesus being an extension of His Father and the legitimacy of His continuing His Father’s work even on the Sabbath.
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