“My Father is greater than I”
I’ve been struggling to fully understand the Gospel reading for this coming Sunday, Pentecost (John 14:23-31), particularly these words of Jesus: “My Father is greater than I.” Francis Pieper, in his Christian Dogmatics (II:62), says the following:
The statement of John 14:28: “My Father is greater than I,” describes Christ according to His human nature in the state of humiliation, for according to the context Christ is speaking of a condition which ends with His going to the Father. See Luther, St. L. XI:1079 f.
(I don’t have access to the referenced Luther text; if anyone does, I’d be glad if they shared what it says there.)
I have no tendency or interest in limiting the full and completely deity of our Lord JESUS Christ; this seems Pieper’s primary concern in his section, “The True Deity of Christ” (II:59ff). What I have never fully grasped is how this explanation squares with 1 Cor. 15:28, where it is written that “the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.” Gerhard (referenced in Pieper) says this refers to Christ’s mystical body, the union of Christ with His Church. Chemnitz (quoted in Lockwood’s commentary on 1 Corinthians) says this passage also refers to the human nature of Christ:
In 1 Cor. 15:28 Paul also shows that the human nature in Christ is below or less than or inferior to God, not only when in the state of humiliation He says, “My Father is greater than I” [John 14:28], or when after the resurrection He says, “I ascend to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God” [John 20:17], but even after the Last Day when He will have handed over the kingdom to God and His Father.
This is a great mystery to me. I guess I will have to be content to say with the Athanasian Creed that the Son is equal to the Father with respect to His divinity, less than the Father with respect to His humanity.
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He is equal to the father as to the essence of his being. But why must we assume he is equal in position? The Three have different roles in their inner life.
Jesus always says not me not me not me but my father (God) but christian missundestand him and says no no you are God… He was indeed messenger of God… according to the Bible one is son of God…
Ahmad,
The New Testament clearly acknowledges both the Father and the Son as God. One example, from John 20: Thomas says to Jesus, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus receives his worship, and says that blessed are those who have not seen Him and yet believe.
I pray that you come to receive the Lord JESUS as both true man and true God, born of the virgin Mary, crucified and risen for the forgiveness of your sins and of us all.