John 5:43-44

Be Thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above all the earth.

Psalms 57:5

It is a truism to say that order in nature depends upon right relationships; to achieve harmony each thing must be in its proper position relative to each other thing. In human life it is not otherwise.

I have hinted before in these chapters that the cause of all our human miseries is a radical moral dislocation, an upset in our...

For Reading and Meditation:     John 5:31-47

Jesus claimed to be greater than the Scriptures. Everyone else has to put themselves under the authority of the Scriptures. In one sense, of course, Christ subjected Himself to the Scriptures, but in another sense He was superior to them. He did not emerge from the Bible; the Bible emerged from Him. The Amplified Bible...

By these words our Lord indicates that we cannot at the same time seek man's approbation and the approval of God. He also affirms that once we embark on a quest for human accreditation, we have dealt a body-blow to the life of faith.

In similar vein the Apostle Paul expresses the moral inconsistency between coveting man's praise and God's: "…for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ" (Galatians 1:10 b).

Let me...

Twice in John 5:1-47 the Lord Jesus says that He can do nothing of Himself. In verse 19, He says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself…" Then again in verse 30 He says, "I can of mine own self do nothing…"

When we first read these verses, we are apt to feel disappointed. They seem to say that Jesus was limited in His power, just like ourselves. But if He is God, as He claimed to be, He must be omnipotent. How...