Well they are the views that have been held by the church since time Immeorial regarding John 14:28
a) Father is greater than the Son in terms of “status� considering the incarnation lead Christ from the state of glory which He shared with the Father before the world (John 17:5) into a lowly state of humility when He took on the form of a servant (Phil. 2:5-11), whilst the Father remained in heaven in the fullness of His glory. In this same sense therefore The Son is also greater than Himself – for The Son “became less� when he left this state of glory and took up humanity. It cannot be interpreted such that the Father is greater than The Son in any other way – for The Son is repeatedly shown to be equal with the Father, in both essence and power elsewhere in scripture.
b) St Basil interprets it as The Son giving honor to His Father – i.e. A statement of humility in appreciation of the Father, rather than a statement depreciating Himself against the Father – Like for example, if I would to tell people my friend is a greater tennis player than me – despite the fact we both play equally well, i make this statement in humility to honour my friend. Again this is sound, not conflicting with the context or any other verse.
c)I actually like Matthew Henrys interpretation – u see the context of the verse is Christ breaking the news to his disciples that He is going to leave them, and so in trying to comfort them he wants to emphasise that He is going to a great place, a glorious place, He is going to the Father Himself – and where the Father is, is a much glorious place – Its the very place Christ was initially before He became incarnate, when He shared this glory with the Father (John 17:5).
As for Christ not knowing the hour of Judgement. First lets consider a few things:
a) The scriptures show that Christ new everything: Luke 10:22, John 16:30-31, John 21:17, John 2:23-25, Revelations 2:23 (cross reference this with Jeremiah 17:10).
b) St John calls Christ the Word of God in John 1:1. The “Word� of God, is like the “Wisdom� of God – St Paul calls Christ The Wisdom and Power of God – he also says that all the treasures of Wisdom are hidden in Christ, and St Luke expressly declares that Christ is The Wisdom of God also. Therefore Christ is actually the manifestation of God's infinite knowledge and Wisdom.
In light of this, there's two sound intepretation of this verse consistent with the context: a) Since Christ took upon Himself a complete human nature i.e. Including a human mind, therefore the hour of His coming did not register with his human mind, though according to His divinity (the divine nature is a simple spirit which has no real “mind�) He knew the hour. Or b) Considering the context, Christ did not want his disciples to worry about the hour of his coming, so He says this not because He does not know, but rather to take their attention off this issue of the hour of judgement, and to look at the more important things.
In the Orthodox Study Bible, this is the explanation it gives on this verse. It's straight fom the bible.
14:28- My Father is greater than I doesn't mean the Father is greater than the Son in nature or essence, for the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father(v.11) Rather, it means the Father who is the fountainhead of the Trinity, is the eternal cause of the Son, for He begot the Son before all times and ages. The Son is "begotten" of the Father before all worlds, and not made. Indeed, the Incarnate Son receives His whole existance from the Father and carries out His mission in full obedience to the Father.
*keep in mind that because Christ came forth from the Father, it doesn't mean that the Father existed before the Son, but that Jesus was begotten from the Father.
I'm not sure if this was said before, or if it's even right, but I was sort of thinking that it was just like when Jesus got baptized. He did it to show us how we are supposed to behave, so maybe Jesus is trying to tell us to humble ourselves before our Father, and our fathers.
Hey...I know this discussion may have died down a bit...but I found this really great lecture that explains many of these verses that are harder to understand. Here it is:
If anyone has trouble accessing this, try typing in the following: www.suscopts.org and follow this path: Resources > Literature > Orthodox Faith > Christology > "Things Hard to Understand (Holy Gospel of St. John)". That should help explain it much better than I ever could.
Just wanted to share my take on this. I am no scholar or an authority by any means, but here is a simple way of looking at it.
Jesus was a complete human in every aspect of His life except sin. Some of the verses mentioned here are spoken from His human nature. It is kind of hard to understand because of our limited understanding in comparision to God. For that same reason, His human nature, he felt Hungry, sad, thirsty, and He even wept and his spirit was troubled. These are all aspects of His human nature. As a human, the Divinity is greater than His human nature (not The Son, The Logos) Just the human body if you will. As a human, He didn't want to go thru the cross (again, the human nature speaks) It is like the three hypostasis (The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit) existed from the beginning. The Son took flesh from The Holy Spirit and from Virgin Mary (... and was incarnate of The Holy Spirit of of the Virgin Mary and became man... ) The Orthodox Creed. I don't know if this makes it simpler or more complicated. But I think it helps.
Comments
Well they are the views that have been held by the church since time Immeorial regarding John 14:28
a) Father is greater than the Son in terms of “status� considering the incarnation lead Christ from the state of glory which He shared with the Father before the world (John 17:5) into a lowly state of humility when He took on the form of a servant (Phil. 2:5-11), whilst the Father remained in heaven in the fullness of His glory. In this same sense therefore The Son is also greater than Himself – for The Son “became less� when he left this state of glory and took up humanity. It cannot be interpreted such that the Father is greater than The Son in any other way – for The Son is repeatedly shown to be equal with the Father, in both essence and power elsewhere in scripture.
b) St Basil interprets it as The Son giving honor to His Father – i.e. A statement of humility in appreciation of the Father, rather than a statement depreciating Himself against the Father – Like for example, if I would to tell people my friend is a greater tennis player than me – despite the fact we both play equally well, i make this statement in humility to honour my friend. Again this is sound, not conflicting with the context or any other verse.
c)I actually like Matthew Henrys interpretation – u see the context of the verse is Christ breaking the news to his disciples that He is going to leave them, and so in trying to comfort them he wants to emphasise that He is going to a great place, a glorious place, He is going to the Father Himself – and where the Father is, is a much glorious place – Its the very place Christ was initially before He became incarnate, when He shared this glory with the Father (John 17:5).
As for Christ not knowing the hour of Judgement. First lets consider a few things:
a) The scriptures show that Christ new everything: Luke 10:22, John 16:30-31, John 21:17, John 2:23-25, Revelations 2:23 (cross reference this with Jeremiah 17:10).
b) St John calls Christ the Word of God in John 1:1. The “Word� of God, is like the “Wisdom� of God – St Paul calls Christ The Wisdom and Power of God – he also says that all the treasures of Wisdom are hidden in Christ, and St Luke expressly declares that Christ is The Wisdom of God also. Therefore Christ is actually the manifestation of God's infinite knowledge and Wisdom.
In light of this, there's two sound intepretation of this verse consistent with the context: a) Since Christ took upon Himself a complete human nature i.e. Including a human mind, therefore the hour of His coming did not register with his human mind, though according to His divinity (the divine nature is a simple spirit which has no real “mind�) He knew the hour. Or b) Considering the context, Christ did not want his disciples to worry about the hour of his coming, so He says this not because He does not know, but rather to take their attention off this issue of the hour of judgement, and to look at the more important things.
14:28- My Father is greater than I doesn't mean the Father is greater than the Son in nature or essence, for the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father(v.11) Rather, it means the Father who is the fountainhead of the Trinity, is the eternal cause of the Son, for He begot the Son before all times and ages. The Son is "begotten" of the Father before all worlds, and not made. Indeed, the Incarnate Son receives His whole existance from the Father and carries out His mission in full obedience to the Father.
*keep in mind that because Christ came forth from the Father, it doesn't mean that the Father existed before the Son, but that Jesus was begotten from the Father.
+God Bless you+
http://www.suscopts.org/messages/lectures/christlecture7.pdf
If anyone has trouble accessing this, try typing in the following:
www.suscopts.org and follow this path: Resources > Literature > Orthodox Faith > Christology > "Things Hard to Understand (Holy Gospel of St. John)". That should help explain it much better than I ever could.
Jesus was a complete human in every aspect of His life except sin. Some of the verses mentioned here are spoken from His human nature. It is kind of hard to understand because of our limited understanding in comparision to God. For that same reason, His human nature, he felt Hungry, sad, thirsty, and He even wept and his spirit was troubled. These are all aspects of His human nature. As a human, the Divinity is greater than His human nature (not The Son, The Logos) Just the human body if you will. As a human, He didn't want to go thru the cross (again, the human nature speaks)
It is like the three hypostasis (The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit) existed from the beginning. The Son took flesh from The Holy Spirit and from Virgin Mary (... and was incarnate of The Holy Spirit of of the Virgin Mary and became man... ) The Orthodox Creed.
I don't know if this makes it simpler or more complicated. But I think it helps.