Frenemies

(frenemies are enemies who act like your friend)

If Jesus is the servant and friend of God, and Jesus is our Savior, how can we know if Jesus will always be there to be the centerpiece of our salvation and experience of eternal life?  If, somewhere in the vast breadth of eternity Jesus separated Himself from God, would we lose eternal life?  John 17:3,

And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

John 17:23-23,

I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.  Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.

What would happen if, down through the ages, Jesus grew tired of his place and decided to turn his back on God? Ever heard of anything like that in scripture?  It calls into question the kind of being Jesus is. Is Jesus God Himself or some lesser deity or angelic in nature? Can angels and other beings turn their back on God? Why, yes - and they have! This is the original example, Ezek. 28:12-13, 14-17

You were the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.  You were in Eden, the garden of God....  You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones.  You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you.  By the abundance of your trading You became filled with violence within, And you sinned; Therefore I cast you as a profane thing Out of the mountain of God; And I destroyed you, O covering cherub, From the midst of the fiery stones.  Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor; I cast you to the ground, I laid you before kings, That they might gaze at you.

Judas was another instance.  John 13:21-22,

When Jesus had said these things, He was troubled in spirit, and testified and said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray Me.”  Then the disciples looked at one another, perplexed about whom He spoke.

It happened to King David.  Ps. 55:12-14,

For it is not an enemy who reproaches me; Then I could bear it. Nor is it one who hates me who has exalted himself against me; Then I could hide from him. But it was you, a man my equal, my companion and my acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked to the house of God in the throng.

What's to say that Jesus wouldn't do that one day? God had invested Satan with a lot of power and influence.  We say "it was pride that was Satan's fall," and it is.  Pride is a one-word answer for believing that power and influence comes from ourselves, and our status stands independent of others because by nature we possess goodness and life. It is a false belief. How can pride be overcome? We need the kind of Savior who is eternally faithful to God.  We need Him to remain subject to God meanwhile gathering a people from the earth to save from death and sin. We need one with the character of God Himself, to remain faithful and have the integrity to never turn his back on God. Jesus presents this argument to the Jews as their tool of discernment for whether He is the Christ and the Son of God, John 5:41-47,

“I do not receive honor from men. But I know you, that you do not have the love of God in you.  I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.  How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God?  Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you—Moses, in whom you trust.  For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”

Apparently the depraved heart of man loves the concept that men are sole originators of anything that brings life.  But Jesus says in a way, "The message hasn't changed. It's just that I'm manifesting it in the flesh." Those who already "identified" God properly from the Old Testament have no trouble "identifying" God in Jesus Christ.

The heart of God is that He is not alone in Himself. All those who come in their own name and their own message should receive a red flag of alert. God never has to speak for his own credibility and reputation. Even if he was robbed all of humanity's praise, the rocks would cry out.  God always uses another to testify of his own credibility and reputation. He uses the context of observable relationship in action to prove His identity. If the Father can be manifested in Jesus, the Father need not say a word.  That's why the Son has such a critical role with the Father - because he isn't here to testify of Himself, or to do His own will or to seek His own glory. He is here to gain all those things for the Father. Jesus is completely empty of Himself. But: that doesn't mean that Jesus isn't gaining glory and His own interests while here - because everybody should gird themselves - the Father is doing that very thing for the Son right now in front of everybody's faces - and this is the point of sermons given by Jesus such as John 5:22-38,

Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.  Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.  For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel.  For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will.  For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.  Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live.  For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man.  Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.  I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me. “If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true.  There is another who bears witness of Me, and I know that the witness which He witnesses of Me is true.  You have sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth.  Yet I do not receive testimony from man, but I say these things that you may be saved.  He was the burning and shining lamp, and you were willing for a time to rejoice in his light.  But I have a greater witness than John’s; for the works which the Father has given Me to finish—the very works that I do—bear witness of Me, that the Father has sent Me.  And the Father Himself, who sent Me, has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form.  But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe.

There is no gaining of relationship going on here for Jesus.  Jesus was not becoming the Son of God when he was ascended, nor when he was resurrected, nor when He was baptized.  Jesus Christ has always been the Son of God.  A Son is one who reflects the will of the Father, and it is this character that He had from eternity which allowed the Father to describe the accomplishment thus far to his revealing in the Jordan River: "This is My Son, in whom I am well pleased."  The defining distinction of a "son" is that he is in constant Spiritual need from God (Rom. 8:14).  This is why Jesus, though he had all "accomplishments" as the lofty Son of God, remained completely self-less. John 6:57,

As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.

Sons are not those who lose God and regain God like human beings do in their fallibility.  There is only one kind of "gaining" Jesus ever demonstrated, which is daily provisions for Spiritual life. The relationship has been established in eternity long before Jesus put on flesh.  It's only that now it is unfolding before us in the Gospel of John.  Jesus' state of abiding in God is pretty much the conversation of all doctrine in this Gospel, and everything to which He is inviting God's people in this Gospel.  It is the means by which there is, and will be, any such "thing" as eternal life.