This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Comment: Whom we believe Jesus is makes the world of difference to how we think and live. We have just passed the Christmas Season. Is that stuff about angels and Mary never lying with a man true or not? Is Jesus the Son of God? Here He is claiming the authority to properly interpret the Law (which was enough to put the Jewish leaders’ noses out of joint!) but uses words which clearly the leaders understood that Jesus was saying that He was God. They interpreted this as blasphemy, and clearly if Jesus wasn’t God, it was blasphemy. This accusation would shortly see Him nailed to the Cross. We can easily see much good in many of the teachings of Jesus but, if this claim is not true then we have to see Him as deluded or lying. If it is not true the whole church is built on a lie. What do you believe? As we later go looking at John’s gospel we read much of Jesus speaking about Himself and His relationship with God, His Father!
Prayer: There is much I cannot understand, but I do believe that You are who You claim to be, Jesus.
As I read it! 
apologies, Barry, but really, can’t see that calling God His Father implies that He equated himself with God. I feel that there be a gaping hole in the logic, there . .
j.
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Hello, Jamison it is good to hear from you. This was not the first time that Jesus had spoken about His relationship to God. In addition unlike us the Jews were expecting a Messiah to come who was straight from God. Those listening to Jesus on this occasion had heard John the Baptist announce Him as the Messiah calling Jesus among other things ‘the Lamb of God’ which doesn’t mean much to us unless we know the Old Testament but to the Jew it immediately turned their minds to the sacrifices and above all to the lamb slain to allow them to leave Egypt and slavery. They had experienced Him whipping out the traders in the temple and Him saying ‘My Father’s house.’ They may or may not have heard that Jesus said to the woman of Samaria ‘I am the Messiah’. In another place Jesus said that before Abraham was ‘I AM’, which is the great Name of God. In week or so I spend a few days devotionals looking at where Jesus spends a long time expounding His relationship to God. John 5 19-47. Tomorrow I move into commenting on Esther for a week but then I spend 3 days on the passage referred to here. In other words I write ahead as I’m not sure these days when I will be laid up for a day or two!
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