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Bible Notes - Tabernacle Commentaries
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John 5:26
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How does this happen? ‘For as the Father hath life in himself;’ – he is the source, the fountain of life – ‘so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself.’ Not only does the Son suffer and die for sinners, but he imparts spiritual life to those who come to him. He is equal with the Father, he effectively says. Even though he is in human flesh and he is walking as a man during his earthly ministry, he still has the power of life the Father has ordained. He has always had it in eternity past. He retains it even as a man on earth. Through his word, life can come to a needy soul.The Son of God left heaven, humbled himself, entered into human personality, and a human body, and accepted limitations in order to be our representative. Yet, although he was a man, with limitations, taking our place, feeling pain, and exhaustion, and temptation, as we feel it, yet the Father determined that he would still be able to exercise his life-giving power, even in the state of his humiliation. So Christ could heal and do great things because he didn’t empty himself of everything when he became a man he still had divine power to heal and work, and retained divine knowledge.
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If Christ was given this power by the Father, did he only begin to possess it then? ‘For as the Father hath life in himself;’ – inherent life-giving power – ‘so hath he given to the Son’ – the Son always had it, in eternity past, for ever and ever, he always, like the Father, has possessed inherent, life-giving power, but the Father decreed he should continue to have it even when he wore a human body and suffered human limitations. That is the sense of the verse. It doesn’t deny that he had that power as God eternally.
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