The Commandment He Received
The right to take life again — given to the Son, offered to every believer.
John 10:17-18
The Commandment He Received
The right to take life again — given to the Son, and offered to every believer
Power that is received is not power that is owned.
— The Standing Stone —
Behind “LORD” in your Bible lies a hidden name — in the Hebrew it is Yahuah Psalm 83:18; Yahuah is the Father Isaiah 63:16; Yahuah is the only God, beside Him there is no other Isaiah 45:5; therefore Yahuah the Father is the only true God, leaving no room for a second or third person 1 Corinthians 8:6.
Reference Piece
Why exousia — power handed down from the Father — names no second God
Foundation: The Authority He Was Given →
Part One
The Claim
1.1 — The Argument
John 10:17-18
Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
Any man can lay down his life; every man eventually dies. The argument does not rest there. It rests on the second half: “I have power to take it again.” A dead man cannot take his own life back. Only God holds power over life after death. Yahushua claimed that power over His own life. Therefore, the argument concludes, He is God.
1.2 — The Hidden Premise
The argument assumes that taking life again is a power no man could ever hold — that it belongs to God by nature and to no one else. Scripture says otherwise. It gives believers the right to take life, tells them how it is taken — by laying down the old life — and uses the same words for it that John 10:18 uses.
Part Two
The Scene
2.1 — The Shepherd’s Choice
The verse closes a picture built on opposites. “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life” John 10:10. Then two men face the same wolf. The hireling “fleeth” to save his own life John 10:12-13; “the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” John 10:11.
The hireling keeps his life and has nothing more. The shepherd gives his life — “that I might take it again.” In the scene itself, taking life again is the outcome of a choice: the one who lays his life down is the one who takes it back.
Part Three
“I Have Power to Take It Again”
3.1 — The Word for “Power”
exousia (G1849)
Authority, right, permission — Strong’s gives “delegated influence.” The word for inherent might is dunamis (G1411), and John 10:18 does not use it.
Yahushua does not say He has the strength to take His life again. He says He has the right. John shows how to hear the phrase: Pilate boasted, “I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee” — the same noun, the same verb, the same doubled form — and was told he could have no power “except it were given thee from above” John 19:10-11. A right over life that is given from above is not deity, whether a governor holds it or the Son.
3.2 — The Word for “Take”
lambanō (G2983)
To take, to receive, to lay hold of. The same verb means both — to take what is offered is to receive it.
“That I might take it again” is labō. “To take it again” is labein. And the last sentence of the verse — “This commandment have I received of my Father” — is elabon. All three are lambanō. The verse uses one verb for taking life back and for receiving the commandment. What the Son takes, He first received.
3.3 — Taken Again Because It Was Laid Down
Verse 17 ties the two halves together with a purpose word: “I lay down my life, that I might take it again.” The laying down comes first, and it is the way to the taking again. The Father’s love answers that choice: “Therefore doth my Father love me.” The Son does not take His life back by a power that ignores the order of things. He takes it back as the outcome of laying it down, by a right He received from His Father.
Part Four
The Believer Takes Life Again
4.1 — The Same Two Words, Given to Believers
John’s Gospel puts the two key words of John 10:18 together one other time — in its first chapter, about believers: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God” John 1:12. “Received” is elabon — lambanō. “Power” is exousia. The believer who takes hold is given the right — the very pair of words the argument uses to prove the Son is God.
4.2 — Life Taken by Laying Down the Old
The believer takes life again the same way the Son did: by laying the old life down. Yahushua said it with a seed: a corn of wheat that falls into the ground and dies “bringeth forth much fruit,” and “he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal” John 12:24-25. “Whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” Matthew 16:25. Lay it down, and take it again.
The apostles describe the believer doing exactly this:
• “I am crucified with Messiah: nevertheless I live” Galatians 2:20.
• “If we be dead with Messiah, we believe that we shall also live with him” Romans 6:8.
• “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Messiah in God … If ye then be risen with Messiah, seek those things which are above” Colossians 3:1-3.
• “Put off … the old man … and … put on the new man” Ephesians 4:22-24.
Each of these is a choice the believer makes. He puts the old life to death — trusting Yahuah through the blood — and he takes up the new life by walking in Yahuah’s commandments. Dead, then alive. Laid down, then taken again.
4.3 — The Believer Is Told to Take It
Scripture does not only allow the believer to take life; it commands him to. “Lay hold on eternal life” 1 Timothy 6:12 — the verb is a form of lambanō. And the last invitation in the Bible uses lambanō itself: “whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” Revelation 22:17. Life is held out, and the believer is told to take it.
The taking is completed at the last day: “If we be dead with him, we shall also live with him” 2 Timothy 2:11. The believer who lays his life down in this age takes it again in the resurrection — the same order as the Son: laid down, then taken again.
4.4 — What This Does to the Argument
The argument says no man could hold the right to take life again, so the Son must be God. But Scripture gives believers that right in the same words — elabon and exousia — shows them taking new life by laying down the old, and commands them to “take the water of life.” If the right to take life again proves deity, every believer who obeys Revelation 22:17 is God. Scripture draws that conclusion about no one. The laying down is no different: John asks the same of every believer — “we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” 1 John 3:16.
What sets the Son apart is not a power the believer can never have. He laid down His life first, perfectly, and for all the sheep — and took it again first, as the firstborn of all who would follow.
Part Five
Reading the Verse Again
With the Greek and the verse’s own words in place, it can be read with its meaning drawn out:
John 10:17-18 — read in context
Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down by my own choice. I have been given the authority to lay it down, and I have been given the authority to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
Read this way, the Son’s words lose none of their strength. His death was His choice. His taking of life again was His right. And both the choice and the right came from His Father.
Conclusion
The Verdict
John 10:18 is offered as proof that the Son can take His life again by His own divine power, and is therefore God. The verse refuses that reading in its own words. The “power” is exousia — a right given from above, the same word Pilate used. The “taking” is lambanō — the same verb the verse uses for receiving the commandment from the Father. And Scripture hands believers that same right in those same words: “as many as received him, to them gave he power” John 1:12. The believer takes new life by laying down the old, just as the Son took His life again by laying it down. A right every son of God is given proves no one to be God. Yahuah the Father remains the only God, and the Son remains the One He sent, commanded, and loved.
Revelation ends with the same offer the Son received: “whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” Revelation 22:17. The Son took His life again first. Every believer is invited to take it after Him.
He had the right to take His life again — and the last page of the Bible tells every believer, “Let him take the water of life.”