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THE GOD WITH TRAINING WHEELS

In math they call it the transitive property. You remember it well, of course: if a = b, and if b = c, then a = c. Remembering the transitive property from high school algebra might make you want to transit yourself to another state, or – hopefully not – to another radio station where they’re not talking about math! But it’s a common idea that in working with equations and formulas, you can substitute one equal thing in for another equal thing.

Here’s a happier illustration, and then we will hasten to the throne of God’s wisdom for some biblical study. But many of us here at the Voice of Prophecy remember well back to 1981 when the Los Angeles Dodgers got ready for Opening Day. Now, it’s a truism in major league baseball that you always juggle your pitching rotation so your best guy starts on sold-out Opening Day. Your best guy against their best guy. The clash of the titans. For the Dodgers in ‘81, that was certainly Jerry Reuss. The big, blond fireballer was throwing BB’s, and he was the undisputed ace of the staff.

And then – which always happens to the Dodgers, as we all know – right on the eve of Opening Day, Reuss pulls a calf muscle. What to do?

It’ll go down in history, but the Dodger brass decided to send in a 20-year-old rookie instead. They really didn’t want to juggle the rest of their lineup against the Houston Astros, so they handed the baseball to a substitute, fresh-faced, chubby kid from Mexico named Fernando Valenzuela, and said to him, Vamos a ganarles, muchachos. “Go get ‘em, kid.” And then looked up to heaven for some help.

You can imagine that the 55,000 fans at Dodger Stadium were kind of sulking, planning to leave and get out to the Chavez Ravine parking lot by the third inning instead of the usual seventh. What’s the use now? The season’s a wipeout. No Jerry Reuss. May as well give up.

Well, what did the little muchachos do that afternoon? Oh, not much, except to completely shut the Astros down on a five-hit shutout, 2-0. He went on to win his first eight games, five of THEM shutouts. He was the 1981 Rookie of the Year. He was the Cy Young Award winner. He started the All-Star Game for the National League. He took the Dodgers all the way into the playoffs, and – sweet, sweet icing on the cake – helped beat the hated
New York Yankees in the World Series, four games to two. And I can tell you this. After a certain amount of Fernandomania, the stadium sold out every time the kid pitched, fans began to say to the manager: “You know what, Lasorda? Any time you want to sub in Fernando for Jerry Reuss, you just go right ahead. No problem at all.”

We’ve spent a couple of wonderful weeks already exploring the unique nature of a Man named Jesus of Nazareth. We found many valid reasons why Jesus’ claims to be divine, to be one with God the Father, are believable. But today, keeping that transitive property in mind – and also remembering the “substitution principle” from Dodger Stadium – I’d like to prayerfully suggest a powerful “equality equation” that we find all through God’s inspired Word. Again we’d like to thank the marvelous scholars who, a half century ago, penned the insights found in the book, Questions on Doctrine, an authoritative reference book in my own Adventist denomination.

And what this equality principle suggests is that the Bible very often puts God the Father and God the Son – referring to Jesus – in settings where one is equal to the other.

Here’s the first one, which we find in John 5:22, 23. Notice:

“The Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son.” Now here it is: “That all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father.”

So the Son, Jesus, is due the very same kind of, and level of, honor that the Father receives. Not a “lesser” amount. Not a “rookie” level. No. Full and equal glory and praise.

Let’s skip over just about nine chapters to John 14, which you might remember begins with the classic “Let not your heart be troubled.” Down in verse seven, right after Jesus says that He is the WAY to the Father, He adds this:

“If you really knew Me, you would know My Father as well. From now on, you DO know Him and have seen Him.”

But Philip, bless his heart, doesn’t get it. He’s still thinking that Jesus is a substitute Savior, still maybe just a rookie Redeemer. So he says to Jesus:

“Uh, Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

And Jesus has to kindly explain the transitive property of the kingdom to Philip and his eleven friends.

“Don’t you know Me, Philip,” He asked, “even after I have been with you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me HAS seen the Father.”

It’s the classic case of “If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.” Jesus is claiming here to be completely and fully God, one with the Father in all aspects. To see or to know or to love one is to see and know and love the other.

Have you ever known people who confessed a belief in God, but who didn’t yet believe fully in Jesus? It happens all the time, of course, and what a wonderfully patient God we serve. But this same substitution principle applies here as well, as we read in the same book of John, now in chapter 12. There were people who secretly were almost ready to believe in Jesus, but didn’t want to say so out loud for fear of being banished from the temple and its ceremonies. So Jesus cries out in their presence:

“When a man believes in Me, he does not believe in Me only, but in the One who sent Me.”

Just five verses later, Jesus also tells us that when He speaks and teaches, they aren’t just His words, but the Father’s as well.

Here’s another point. You can imagine that Fernando Valenzuela, at the end of 1981, could point to his stats and say – as a salary bargaining tool – “Look. I did the same things as Jerry Reuss, or any of the other top pitchers in the league. So I deserve such-and-such amount.” If memory serves, Valenzuela was one of the very first players to crack the million-dollar-a-year barrier. Talk about a long time ago! Now the guy who carries the players’ duffel bags out to the team bus makes that much.

But friend, here still in the Gospel of John, chapter five, Jesus says to His opponents, who are angry because He’s healing people on the Sabbath day:

“I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself; He can do only what He sees His Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son does also.”

That may be a bit hard to fathom, because Jesus walked the dusty roads, and slept under the trees, and built chairs and tables in a carpentry shop. Did God the Father do all of those things? Well, no. But Jesus and God are both forgivers; they both seek the lost; they both create and heal and restore. They both are masters of the entire universe. So in that sense we have the transitive truth that Jesus does what the Father does, and the Father does what Jesus does. In fact, just two verses later, Jesus tells everyone that the Father raises the dead to life, “and I do too,” He quietly asserts.

Here’s just one more, and this one is huge. Friend, God the Father isn’t just alive; He HAS life in Him. God IS life. If God came down and touched you right now, you would be so filled with vibrant life, you would be healed, restored, recreated, even immortal. Don’t you believe that? Life just exists and surges through and overflows out from God and into those He loves and touches.

And the exact same thing is true of Jesus. He says in John 5:26:

“As the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in HIMSELF.”

One of my favorite stories is where a woman who’s been hemorrhaging for TWELVE YEARS comes to find Jesus. Now, friend, I’m your typical man. I can’t relate to that female, physical hurt. For twelve years, she had felt cramped and achy, sick all the time. So-called doctors had wiped out her savings, and she just continued to feel twisted and ill inside. Constantly. But somehow this dear woman of faith knew: “Jesus is LIFE. It’s in Him as a powerful force, a wellspring of healing. All I have to do is sneak up and touch the hem of His garment. He doesn’t even have to know!” And she was right! Life force, healing power, just surged out from Him and into her. Like the fictional John Coffey character in The Green Mile . . . and instantly she was well! The sick feelings weren’t just gone, they were gone forever. Because Jesus the Son and God the Father both have in them LIFE – “original, unborrowed, underived,” as we like to say in my church.

So Jesus is no substitute pitcher; He’s the real thing. Friend, is it possibly Opening Day for you right now? It could be. Why not hand the baseball of your LIFE over to Jesus?