Living Out ‘On Earth as it is in Heaven’
Jesus says one of the most profound things in all of His entire ministry in John 5. The Son of God, who is fully and eternally God, says that He only does that which He sees His Father doing in verse 19. This is a massive revelation, because it is a statement that is relevant to literally everything Jesus ever did. It means that there was never a thing, in His 33 years on earth and including His 3 years of ministry as recorded in the Gospels, were ever ‘His own’ ideas. They all came straight from the Father. This is incredible because Jesus declares that He came to earth to reveal the Father. And we see in this verse just how complete this revelation of the Father is in the fact that every single action Jesus took came first from the Father.
Verse 20 expands on this already glorious truth by saying that the Father loves the Son and shows Him everything He is doing. For Jesus, life was found in knowing exactly what the Father is doing in Heaven, and then doing it on earth. For Jesus, life was literally living out ‘on earth as it is in heaven.’
When Jesus died on the Cross, the curtain dividing earth and heaven was broken. As Christians, we live under an open Heaven. As Christians, we have unlimited, absolute, all-day access to the Father through the Son. We have access to the Father like the Son did while He was on earth, because by His blood He’s made all who repent and believe into sons. That means that Christians have the ability to say that all we do is what the Father is doing first. Yet in most of our lives, certainly including mine, this ability rarely becomes a reality.
Later in the chapter, when Jesus is participating in one of His favorite activities, rebuking the Pharisees, He rebukes them for knowing the Scriptures which testify of Him, yet missing Him, the one who has come to earth to bring life (verses 39, 40). This verse is amazing because, again, for Jesus, life was found in connection to and union with the Father, and knowing what He was doing. And it’s this that He came to bring to earth for all who would come to Him.
As Christians, we have the ability to know, through the Holy Spirit, what God is doing in Heaven, and to do just that, by the Holy Spirit, on earth. The Father, just as He “loves the Son and shows Him everything that He is doing,” loves us because of what Jesus did on the Cross and will show us everything He is doing. The great question isn’t whether He’ll reveal Himself, but if we’ll take the time to pay attention. And I’m concerned that in my own life, I spend far more time telling God my agenda than asking Him His.
If there was ever someone who walked the earth who would have good reason to pursue their own agenda and follow their own path, it was Jesus. But in verse 30 of John 5, Jesus says of Himself that “I do not seek my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.” Transformation on earth comes from revelation from Heaven, and revelation from heaven comes only from relation with the God of Heaven. And this verse is a call to us all to stop being so caught up in our own plans, but rather to look up, see an open Heaven with a Father eager to reveal His plans for saving the world and reversing the curse to us, His children. And as we do, His will truly shall be done more and more on earth as it is in Heaven.
