The objection
Jesus says that the Father is greater than he and that the Son can do nothing of himself. Does Jesus not thereby seem himself to confess his inferior nature and dependent power?
1. “Greater” requires a specific comparison
Jesus says this in the context of his departure to the Father. His disciples are to rejoice over it. The sentence therefore describes his present condition and the impending transition to glory. It does not formulate the abstract claim that the Father possesses more divine being.
A comparison concerning position, mission or revealed glory is no comparison concerning nature. Frame names several possible contextual emphases; common to them is that the incarnate Son's path is in view.[1]
2. The context speaks of returning to glory
John 17,5 makes explicit that the Son had glory with the Father before the world existed. His going to the Father is therefore no promotion of a mere creature to deity. The one already with the Father before the world completes his commission as a human.
John 14 itself also connects the departure with greater activity for the disciples and the sending of the Spirit. The sentence about the greater Father stands within this salvation history, not outside it as a definition of inferior deity.
3. John 5 excludes independent action
“The Son can do nothing of himself” is immediately explained: Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. The second half prevents reading the first as simple powerlessness. No prophet could truthfully claim to do everything just as the Father does.
Jesus specifically names raising the dead, giving life and judgment. The text then requires everyone to honor the Son as the Father. Here the impossibility of autonomous action detached from the Father belongs to their perfect unity, not to a creaturely limitation of Jesus.
4. Difference of persons is no division of deity
The Son is sent, receives and obeys. These relationships are real; we need not remove them from the text. But the concepts do not all say the same thing. Human obedience, messianic authorization and undivided divine action must each be determined in context.
The objection turns every dependence within a commission into inferiority of being. Precisely this inference is excluded by the simultaneous statements about the Son's comprehensive action and equal honor. Jesus never acts against or without the Father; he acts with the authority corresponding to his unique relationship to the Father.
Biblical texts in context
Sources and further study
- John M. Frame, The Doctrine of GodCh. 28, pp. 682–683: John 14,28 and different meanings of “greater.”