Tag Archives: I and the Father are one

He has revealed Him… 3

Bible Study, ,

John 1:18 NLT‬
[18] “No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us.”

In our focus on Jesus’ saving work on the cross, we sometimes miss one of the great reasons for His coming to earth. Jesus often testified to this purpose.

In His answer to Philip’s request…

‭John 14:8 NLT‬
[8] Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”

… He makes it clear that He is the visible, personal, and perfect replica of the Father.

‭John 14:9-11 NLT‬
[9] “Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you? [10] Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me. [11] Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least believe because of the work you have seen me do.”

The writer to the Hebrews echoes Jesus’ words,

‭Hebrews 1:3 NLT‬
[3]” The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command…”

Why was it so necessary for God to come in person to demonstrate to His people what He is really like?

Centuries of rebellion, disobedience, and punishment shaped God’s people’s thinking to view God as an angry disciplinarian. Hence, over the years, Jewish rabbis developed laws to protect God’s laws against His people inadvertantly breaking His laws. They laid heavy and unnecessary burdens on God’s people to “help” them obey God’s instructions.

When Jesus began His public ministry, He clashed with the religious leaders because they used these “laws” to control the people. They refused to believe that God is a merciful and loving Father. They despised Jesus for mixing with the outcasts of society, for eating with “sinners”, for healing on the Sabbath, and for generally being a loving, caring, merciful, and generous person.

They were incensed when He spoke of God as His Father because they refused to believe that God was so “nice”. They accused Him of blasphemy and eventually had Him killed for this charge. They fought to retain their hold over the people because of the position they held and the honour, respect and money they received from their “subjects”.

John recorded only seven of Jesus’ miracles, which he called signs, because he wanted his readers to examine the evidence these signs presented to confirm that Jesus is the Son of God. Each sign concluded with individuals or groups of people believing in Him. The purpose of John’s book was to provide evidence that Jesus is the Son of God so the his readers would believe in Him.

‭John 20:30-31 NLT‬
[30] “The disciples saw Jesus do many other miraculous signs in addition to the ones recorded in this book. [31] But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name.”

There is more than enough evidence in the gospel records to provide the answer to Jesus’ question,

‭Matthew 16:15 NLT‬
[15] Then he asked them, “But who do you say I am?”

If we believe that the Bible is the Word of God, then there can only be one answer, and we must say, with Peter,

‭Matthew 16:16 NLT‬
[16] “Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

That’s the key to receiving Him (John 1:12) and with our confession, we participate in God’s rescue plan in all its glorious facets.

‭Romans 10:9-10 NLT‬
[9]”If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. [10] For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.”

Jesus forever clinched His revelation of the true nature of the Father by giving Himself as an atoning sacrifice for sin, forever confirming that the Father is, in eseence, love. That love underpins everything He says and does to draw us to Himself and to fulfill every promise He has ever made. That love reveals His mercy and benefits us freely (without a cause) because He is who He says He is.

‭1 John 4:9-10 NLT‬
[9] “God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. [10] This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.”

The onus is on us to examine the evidence, to believe the evidence, and to confess and submit to Jesus because He is who He said He is.

The Heartbeat Of Jesus

Christian Life, , ,

THE HEARTBEAT OF JESUS

Everything we have talked about so far leads us to one thing – the heartbeat of Jesus. We cannot leave this study without exploring as deeply as we can, what made Him tick. Who was this man, Jesus? What was His essence? If we are to get anywhere near to what He modelled, we must explore and discover Him.

I want to make it as simple as I can by examining His relationships on every level, beginning with His place in the Trinity as the Son and going on to all the people He interacted with on earth, both friends and enemies. How did He relate to them; how did He treat them and how did He come across to them?

How did Jesus relate to the Father?

Let’s start at the beginning. Jesus said:

I and the Father are one. (John 10: 30)

That was a very bold statement to make and one which His opponents obviously understood, judging by their reaction.

Again the Jews picked up stones to stone Him, but Jesus said to them, ‘I have shown you many miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?’ ‘We are not stoning you for any of these,’ replied the Jews, ‘but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.’ (John 10: 31-33)

What was the oneness He was talking about?

 “When a Torah scribe asked Yeshua which was the foremost commandment in the Law of Moses, he quoted the Shema and its appended command:

The most important one is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength’. (Mark 12: 29-30)

“He added the command to love one’s neighbour found in Leviticus 19:18 as a corollary of loving God.

“The scribe responded by affirming Yeshua’s answer. Then he shifted focus to what seems to be a veiled reference to monotheism — perhaps to tempt Yeshua to make a statement about his identity. 

‘Well said, teacher,’ the man replied. ‘You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but Him.’ (v. 32)

“Yeshua didn’t take the bait. Instead, “When Yeshua saw that he had answered wisely [about the command to love], he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God’ ” (v. 34).

“Yeshua didn’t take this discussion of the Shema as an opportunity to affirm a theoretical compound unity in the Godhead or his place in it. Rather, he pointed the scribe to the extraordinary passage in Psalm 110:1, which speaks of a “Lord” who sits next to YHVH.

YHVH said to my LORD [Adon], Sit at my right hand, Until I put your enemies beneath your feet.

“Then Yeshua tested him with an exegetical question about that Lord’s identity: “How is it that the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David? [Ps 110:1] David himself calls him ‘Lord’: and so in what sense is he his son?” (Mark 12:35-37).

“The scribe and his theological comrades apparently could not, or dare not, answer Yeshua. Instead, “No one was able to answer him a word . . .” (Matt 22:46).

“Yeshua’s diverting attention from the Shema to Psalm 110:1 is a significant move. In fact, Psalm 110:1 is the most quoted Hebrew text in the NT, more than Deuteronomy 6:4, Isaiah 53 or Psalm 22. He set the exegetical agenda for all his followers — and for Israel.

“In essence, Psalm 110:1 is the other Shema in Hebrew Scripture, the one that completes the revelation of the one God to his people and to all peoples on earth.

“Yeshua’s shift of emphasis could become a vision-changing lesson for modern interpreters to follow his example — instead of the example of their teachers and rabbis.

“The statement by Yeshua, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), begs to be interpreted in light of this discussion of echad. In context, it seems clear that he was affirming a unity of purpose, will, and power with God the Father. His Father, who is “greater than all” (John 10: 29), had given him authority and divine power to keep all his sheep safe within the protected sphere of eternal life. He asked his Father that his disciples “may all be one, just as we are one” (John 17: 21-22). What all their unity may be, it does not mean they become united into the one Deity, as in New Age pantheistic religion.

Notwithstanding the accusations of the Jerusalem theologians that Yeshua, “being a man, [made himself] out to be God” (v. 33), he stood his ground that, as “Son of God” (v. 36), the Father was “in” him — not that he was God the Father.” (“Echad” in the Shema” by Paul Sumner).

(For a more thorough discussion of the meaning of echad, see Paul Sumner’s article:

http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/hebrew/echad.html – retrieved in May 2015).

What did unity with the Father mean to Jesus?

Jesus’s claim to be one with the Father was not about equality with the Father as His right. He renounced that right when He became the Son, and lived on earth in a Father/Son relationship. In fact He delighted in His subordination to the Father. He made no bones about His submission and obedience to the Father, even to the point of embracing the Father’s plan that He become the atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

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