The Father gives all judgment to the Son, John 5:22-23

Sources

• John 5:22-23, NASB. (opens in a new tab)

  John 5:22-23, NASB.

Objections & responses

The Father “has given” judgment to the Son. Given, not shared by nature. Isn’t that delegation, and doesn’t delegation imply the delegate is subordinate?

The verse does say given, and John’s Gospel consistently portrays the Son as receiving from the Father; the Trinity affirms that, which is what eternally begotten means. What the verse adds is the purpose clause: that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Delegated agents in Jewish thought are never to be honored just as God is honored, because that would be idolatry. The given language and the equal honor language sit in the same sentence, and the tension between them is the central data of this case, not something to explain away.

Jewish texts of the period give final judgment to human or angelic agents: the Son of Man in 1 Enoch, Abel in the Testament of Abraham, Melchizedek at Qumran. Wasn’t judgment a delegable role?

This is a real finding from Second Temple literature, and judgment was not unambiguously God-only in every Jewish text. Two replies. In those texts the agent judges by explicit delegation and remains clearly beneath God; in John 5 the stated purpose of the Son’s judging is that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father, which no Jewish text says of Enoch or Abel. And the argument is cumulative: judgment plus life in himself plus creation plus receiving worship. Any one role can be delegated; the whole cluster is what marks the divine identity.

Appears under 1 claim in this case

• The New Testament gives Jesus two roles the Old Testament assigns to God alone: final judge of all people and the source of life.