November 30, 2023

John 10:30

Written by:
Rev (Dr) Prabhudas Koshy

READ:

John 10:30

30 I and my Father are one.

EXHORTATION:

Christ here proclaims His oneness with the Father. Some have argued that these words of Christ are only with reference to the mutual interest of the Father and Christ concerning the protection of the redeemed people. Their reason for such an insistence is that Jesus was instructing the people that He would give them eternal life and that they would never perish. However, they have failed to take into consideration that Christ had also spoken of His and the Father’s great power to protect His people. Now consider Jesus’ actual words: “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand” (John 10:28-29). Concerning the protection that both of them would give His people, Christ has said that “neither shall any man pluck them out of my (i.e. Christ’s) hand” (v. 28) nor the “Father’s hand” (v. 29). Both are depicted as omnipotent, and as the unconquerable defence of the redeemed. The common objective of the Father and Christ concerning the protection of the redeemed is based on their omnipotence.

Furthermore, we also note that immediately after Jesus had declared His oneness with the Father, the Jews took up stones to mete out punishment to Him for what they deemed to be blasphemy, for they understood Him as affirming His equality with God (John 10:31, 33). They said to Him, “… we stone thee … for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.” The Jews had no doubt that Jesus was affirming that He was God. Jesus did not deny their perception of His words concerning His oneness with the Father. Christ soon made yet another assertion of His equality with the Father – “If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him” (vv. 37-38).

Here Christ is claiming absolute equality with the Father. All of the divine perfections of the Father are also found in Christ, the First and Second Persons of the Godhead respectively. Not one aspect of Christ’s divine nature dimmed in its perfect splendour and majesty. Christ is not the Father but the Son. Yet, in the glorious mystery of the Triune Godhead, the Father and the Son are one in essence, nature and purpose! They are one in all that are essential to the Godhead, and yet two distinct Persons.

Category: 
Gethsemane Bible-Presbyterian Church adheres to the system of faith commonly known as the “Reformed Faith” as expressed in the Westminster Confession of Faith together with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms.
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