Jesus declared Himself one with the Father, equal with Him in Deity, power and authority as the Son of God. Father and Son are two distinct persons perfectly united, dwelling in each other and sharing one substance, nature, character and purpose. He spoke this of His sheep, that hearing His voice and following Him they receive eternal life and are held secure in the united keeping of His hand and the Father's hand. In that oneness He reveals the Father as merciful, compassionate and loving, and Father and Son suffered together in giving the Son to redeem humanity. That same oneness is the pattern for believers to be brought into oneness with God and made one in heart with one another.
Context and Immediate Setting
Jesus spoke these words at the feast of dedication in Jerusalem, in winter, while walking in Solomon's porch. The Jews had asked Him whether He was the Christ, and He had answered that His works done in His Father's name bore witness of Him. His sheep hear His voice and follow Him, and He gives them eternal life so that they never perish. No one is able to take them out of His hand, and no one is able to take them out of His Father's hand, for Father and Son are one in keeping them secure.
He uttered this oneness while speaking to the Pharisees and reading their thoughts. His disciples also heard Him say it, after listening to His words for nearly three years and witnessing His mighty works. Yet they were still slow to comprehend and know Him, and their unbelief and dullness grieved His loving heart. The saying carries height and depth and breadth of meaning, and it is clothed with mysterious power that can only be spiritually discerned.
Nature of Father-Son Oneness
The Father and the Son are one, yet each has a distinct personality and personage, two distinct persons and not one merged being. The Son stands forth as the Son of man in distinct human personality, a real personal being and not a nonentity, and while distinct from the Father as a person He is one with Deity. This oneness was expressed in His authority and in His power to do His work, so that His words came with the authority of God. To accomplish redemption He came to the world in human form, laying aside His royal robe and kingly crown and clothing His divinity with humanity, that through His infinite sacrifice humanity might become partakers of the divine nature and escape the world's corruption through lust.
Their oneness is mutual indwelling, the Father in Christ and Christ in the Father, a complete union and the strongest bond that cannot be separated. Between God and His only-begotten Son this bond showed what wonderful interest God had in humanity, giving the gift He held most dear to a life of suffering to work out human salvation. Because of that complete oneness Satan's misrepresentation of God could be unfolded and shown in its real character through Christ. His works done in the Father's name bear witness to this unity and to His identity as the Son of the living God.
They are of one substance and possess the same attributes, one with the eternal Father in nature, character, and purpose. Jesus' claim expresses His divinity, and His words and presence bear witness that He is the beloved Son of God. This shared divine life and unity in heaven belongs to His eternal pre-existence in light in the heavenly courts before coming to earth, in contrast to His solitude on earth in the world He had created where even nearest friends and relatives did not understand Him or His kingdom and love. Because He alone could enter fully into the Father's counsels and purposes, He shared in the work of creation and received the allegiance of heaven equally with the Father.
This unity belongs to His preexistence and glory which surpass human understanding, while Father and Son remain distinct persons who converse together in divine greatness and power. He was one with the Father before the angels were created and from the beginning, preexisting as divine, and the worlds were made by Him. That oneness gave Him pre-eminence over all the angelic host, above Satan who was next in honor to Him, with command belonging to Christ alone in His hands. He was one with the Father in the creation of the world, then clothed His divinity with humanity to save humanity and relied on divine strength in His struggle against the powers of darkness.
They are one in mind, will, and action, for Christ had the mind of God and cheerfully accepted all the Father's requirements. He lived and moved in dependence upon God and in perfect harmony with Him, so that to see Him is to see the Father because the Father dwelt in Him and did the works. His plans were devised with the Father in council before the foundation of the world, and He worked the works of Him who sent Him. In Him God's character was manifested, heaven was joined to humanity, and humanity was held in the bosom of infinite love.
Christ's Deity and Authority
“I and my Father are one” is Christ’s own testimony about Himself, declaring His oneness with God and His equality with the Father, affirming His divine power and Godhead and His identity as the Son of God. His incarnation and humbling of Himself as a servant, taking human nature and enduring temptation and suffering, does not diminish that oneness. He who is thus one is the eternal Word made flesh and the mighty God, worthy of the same honor as the Father. He is the eternal I AM, with divine authority to give life and to judge. As the One who is one with the Father He was the Commander in the heavenly courts and the personal instructor and guide of Israel’s children. Father and Son share the same divine power to raise the dead and to give life to whom He wills. The Father has committed all judgment to the Son, and the Son is to receive the same honor even as the Father is honored. He possesses all that belongs to the Father, shares the Father’s divine authority and glory, reigns upon the eternal throne, and gives His gifts to those who claim them by faith. He is one with the Father in dignity, authority, and Deity. He lays His hand upon the eternal throne of God with the ease and assurance of One who rules and reigns, puts on His head the crown of Deity, sits at the right hand of God, and receives supreme honor as God with the same glory He had before the world was. From that exalted oneness He has authority to appoint a kingdom to His followers and to distribute the gifts and treasures of heaven to all who claim them by faith. The glory of God fell directly upon Him and was reflected to the world in the luster of the greatness of His character. Speaking of Himself as well as the Father as God, He claims for Himself perfect righteousness. Though He truly took human nature and was tempted in all points as humans are from childhood to manhood, even from His first entrance into a world surrounded by corruption, He was free from all sin and error with not a trace of imperfection in life or character. He maintained spotless purity under the most trying circumstances and stood before the world untainted by surrounding corruption, so that the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in Him bodily. His saying that none is good but God does not deny this, for in saying He and His Father are one He declares His own deity and sinless perfection. Because of this oneness His voice came with the authority of God and of the living oracles, as from One who reigned in the midst of the central glory. Therefore all excellence and glory are due to Him, and He is to receive praise and glory. Yet those for whom He labored to save from eternal ruin did not know His voice or believe His word, because the enemy was at work on human hearts to keep the light from the people. Possessing on earth the same divine power He has in heaven, with the Father in Him and Him in the Father, He exercised God’s sole right to forgive sins when He forgave the paralytic. That act proved God Himself stood before them in Christ.
Revealing the Father's Character
God as supreme Ruler could not personally communicate with sinful people, so He sent Jesus to make Himself known. Christ veiled the splendor of His divinity and lived as a man, clothing divinity with humanity so people could know their Creator without being consumed. Through Him the personal Creator is made known as far as human beings could bear, for He is the express image of God and the outshining of the Father's glory come in human form. As Jehovah He so loved the world that He sent Jesus as a revelation of Himself, a personal Saviour who ascended and now intercedes in the heavenly courts.
Christ is the visible representative of the invisible God, so that seeing Christ is seeing the Father. He alone fully knows the Father and reveals Him to those He chooses, making known God's personality and character and love. He does not oppose the Father but bears His character as His express image, showing complete devotion to the Father's saving purpose in self-sacrifice for humanity. The Father is not humanity's enemy, for He gave His only-begotten Son so that believers may have everlasting life. That love He gives to believers so copies of His character may multiply, and those who would represent Christ's character must claim His sufficiency and be cleansed from sin.
To look on Christ is to behold God, for the character of Christ represents the character of God. He reveals the Father as merciful, compassionate, full of goodness and truth and love, and presents God as a tender, compassionate heavenly Father. His work sweeps back the hellish shadow in which Satan enveloped the Father by misinterpreting God's purposes, falsifying His character, and causing man to view God in a false light. His words dispel that false picture, proving through the ages God's love for man has never ceased.
He spoke of this intimate oneness with the natural closeness of a child speaking of parents, without using it to claim superiority over others or assume authority. His words and actions revealed His divine mission: sent by God to enlighten the world, draw people to Himself, give everlasting life, and heal every physical and spiritual disease. In Him the fullness of the Godhead bodily is displayed, and in His attributes are seen the attributes and character of the Infinite. He was the foundation of the whole Jewish economy, symbolized in types and shadows and veiled until He appeared to reveal God openly. Beholding Him exercises faith and affection, satisfies the hunger and thirst of the soul for something higher and purer than earth, and changes the beholder into His image.
One with the Father, He revealed the perfection of God with evidence that cannot be controverted that God is love, leaving every intelligence without excuse for withholding allegiance. Though one with the Father, He came in the likeness of sinful flesh and condemned sin in the flesh by a life of perfect obedience to the law of God. By that obedience He showed that men may become partakers of the divine nature, and through faith may lay hold on moral power brought within their reach and form characters after the divine similitude because of the great love with which He loved them.
Shared Suffering and Sacrifice
The oneness means that Christ did not suffer alone, for though He faced the sacrifice alone among people in Gethsemane and on the cross, God suffered with His Son in reproach and agony. This unity was claimed with divine authority, and the Father's giving up of His Son to reproach, agony and death is evidence of His boundless love for humanity. Even when the Father did not take the cup from Him, He stayed with Him, sending an angel to lift Him from the ground, to bring messages of love from the Father, to give strength to drink the cup, and to give assurance that He was gaining eternal joys for all who will accept redemption.
When Christ was crucified, God Himself was crucified with Him. Christ submitted to crucifixion although the heavenly host could have delivered Him, and the angels suffered with Him. Even those who reject Christ and choose Satan's rule were included among those for whom He yielded up His life at Calvary.
In giving His only-begotten Son to die for mankind, God gave Himself and could have given no more. This is an infinite sacrifice beyond human comprehension, evidencing boundless love to man. It is the remedy for the terrible consequences into which selfishness led the human race, and by it God made it possible for man to be redeemed and restored to oneness with Him.
Because they are one, God Himself suffered in the suffering of His Son. Having undertaken the work of redemption He spares nothing however costly, withholding not heaven itself but heaping gift upon gift until the world is flooded with boundless mercy and love and joy is made full. That unity while Jesus walked the earth in humanity bears the credentials of His divinity to the world, and reveals a love toward humanity so large and unbounded that the Father loves the Son for laying down His life to recover humanity.
As the Prince of heaven and Prince of light, one with the Father, He gave Himself to redeem the fallen human race. The One who is one with the Father came to bridge the gulf that sin had made between humanity and God and to rescue people from sin and ruin, suffering humanity's agony and dying on Calvary's cross. He is the Son of the infinite God who gave Himself in suffering, self-denial and self-sacrifice to save fallen man, and as the promised Teacher sent by God He clothed His divinity with humanity and came to reveal what humanity was meant to be without sin. He was the glory hidden in the pillar of cloud and the One whom all the sacrificial offerings pointed to, whose death as antitype of the types joins mercy and justice in harmony and love without parallel. Moses knew Him through the sacrifices and through the revelation of God's goodness, image, excellency and glory, and knew Him as the Mediator and guardian of Israel who was the protection His people needed, so that Israel was saved through Christ just as fully as people are today.
Safety of the Sheep
I and my Father are one secures the sheep by placing them in united keeping, for those who hear His voice and follow Him receive eternal life and no one can snatch them from Christ's hand or from the Father's hand. This oneness is the pattern for the believer's union with Christ, in which those who receive Him by faith become one with Him. That spiritual bond is closer and more saving than natural family ties, so that even His mother was more truly related to Him by believing and obeying His words, while His brothers gained no spiritual benefit from kinship unless they accepted Him as personal Saviour.
His being one with the Father was shown in a life that fulfilled the law by continual obedience to God's commands, giving followers an example to obey God in His strength and ultimately stand perfect before God. For the same reason the law of the Father and the gospel of Christ are in perfect harmony and cannot be set against each other, with true righteousness keeping both the letter of the law and its spirit pointing to Christ as the atoning sacrifice through whom the sinner can meet its requirements. Turning from the Giver of the law is therefore turning from Christ, because Christ is one with the Father.
The authority of the Son and the law He spoke at Sinai are the Father's authority and character as well as His own, and Christ's glory reflects the Father's glory. In giving Himself through Christ to save sinful humanity, God expressed His love without changing His unalterable law, since not one precept of the Father's law could be altered to excuse man in his fallen condition. The verse also shows Father and Son united in loving concern for God's chosen people, jointly desiring their growth and fruitfulness as vineyard owner and gardener share interest in the fig tree, with the Son giving further opportunity and care so they may become trees of righteousness bearing fruit that blesses the world.
Pattern for Believers' Unity
The oneness declared in I and my Father are one is the pattern for believers to be one in heart and soul, united with Christ in God. They are to work together to build one another up, uniting their illuminated, inspired, and sanctified powers into a complete whole. Joined with Jesus' prayer that His followers be in Him and He in them, their harmony bears witness to the world that the Father sent Jesus and loves them. The Holy Spirit glorifies Christ by revealing this oneness, and Christ's true disciples reflect it as they become like Him and show His great love and works of infinite love to the world through their unity in and through Him.
Through Christ, man is brought into oneness with the Father and into fellowship and relationship with God. While Jesus walked the earth in human dress He was still one with His Father, and that oneness is unity and love which proves His divinity to the world. That same oneness is the pattern for believers taken into partnership with Christ, transformed in character and joined to Him by love, to prove that Christ can reshape, purify, and ennoble the soul, withholding nothing until joy is made full. Because they are one, God Himself suffered in the suffering of His Son, and having undertaken redemption He spares nothing however costly, withholding not heaven itself but heaping gift upon gift until the world is flooded with mercy and love.
Christ is the visible representative of the invisible God and embodies God's love, and He gives that love to believers so that copies of His character may multiply. The Father and the Son are one while each has a distinct personality, and the Son came to the world in human form, laying aside His royal robe and crown and royal status and clothing His divinity with humanity. Through His infinite sacrifice humanity may become partakers of the divine nature and escape the world's corruption through lust.
Christ and His Father are one in united labor, and this oneness is the model for unity among workers in sanitariums, especially physicians serving in responsible positions. They are to labor in similar unity with their brethren and with those laboring in the ministry of the Word, exercising God-given tact to show that in dealing with the sick and suffering they are carrying on the very same work. Christ's own life displays this oneness, for He taught gospel truths from the Scriptures and healed the afflicted who came to Him for relief, acting as the greatest Physician the world ever knew by combining healing work with the imparting of soul-saving truth.
Opposition and Dividing Tactics
The works done in the Father's name bear witness that Father and Son are one, with the Father in Christ and Christ in the Father, and declare His identity as the Son of God, which the Jews understood as making Himself God. That claim of oneness was made in condescending love and great mercy, yet it was met by Pharisees and Sadducees united together in opposition with increased hatred. They charged Him with blasphemy and madness and aimed to destroy His influence.
The Father and the Son are one and cannot be separated, and the special work of Satan is to divide them. He leads the Jews to cry for the Father and the law while rejecting the Son and denying His power to give life and work miracles, and he leads the Christian world to cry for Christ and the gospel while rejecting the Father and His law. Both rejections dishonor God, for the law is the foundation of His government in heaven and on earth, and the gospel runs from Genesis to Revelation, with every act to turn men from sin or bring forgiveness pointing to Christ as the steppingstone by which man is exalted. Christ came to die because not one precept of His Father's law could be altered to excuse man in his fallen condition, proving that Father and Son act together and that God is glorified only by obedience to His law through Christ. His exaltation as one with God, which He possessed before the angels were created, gave Him preeminence over all the angelic host and placed command belonging to Him alone in His hands. Satan, who was next in honor to Him, envied that position and in ambition tried to assume it, stirred to envy and jealousy by that oneness.
Jesus declared Himself one with the Father, equal with Him in Deity, power and authority as the Son of God. Father and Son are two distinct persons perfectly united, dwelling in each other and sharing one substance, nature, character and purpose. He spoke this of His sheep, that hearing His voice and following Him they receive eternal life and are held secure in the united keeping of His hand and the Father's hand. In that oneness He reveals the Father as merciful, compassionate and loving, and Father and Son suffered together in giving the Son to redeem humanity. That same oneness is the pattern for believers to be brought into oneness with God and made one in heart with one another.
Context and Immediate Setting
Jesus spoke these words at the feast of dedication in Jerusalem, in winter, while walking in Solomon's porch. The Jews had asked Him whether He was the Christ, and He had answered that His works done in His Father's name bore witness of Him. His sheep hear His voice and follow Him, and He gives them eternal life so that they never perish. No one is able to take them out of His hand, and no one is able to take them out of His Father's hand, for Father and Son are one in keeping them secure.
He uttered this oneness while speaking to the Pharisees and reading their thoughts. His disciples also heard Him say it, after listening to His words for nearly three years and witnessing His mighty works. Yet they were still slow to comprehend and know Him, and their unbelief and dullness grieved His loving heart. The saying carries height and depth and breadth of meaning, and it is clothed with mysterious power that can only be spiritually discerned.
Nature of Father-Son Oneness
The Father and the Son are one, yet each has a distinct personality and personage, two distinct persons and not one merged being. The Son stands forth as the Son of man in distinct human personality, a real personal being and not a nonentity, and while distinct from the Father as a person He is one with Deity. This oneness was expressed in His authority and in His power to do His work, so that His words came with the authority of God. To accomplish redemption He came to the world in human form, laying aside His royal robe and kingly crown and clothing His divinity with humanity, that through His infinite sacrifice humanity might become partakers of the divine nature and escape the world's corruption through lust.
Their oneness is mutual indwelling, the Father in Christ and Christ in the Father, a complete union and the strongest bond that cannot be separated. Between God and His only-begotten Son this bond showed what wonderful interest God had in humanity, giving the gift He held most dear to a life of suffering to work out human salvation. Because of that complete oneness Satan's misrepresentation of God could be unfolded and shown in its real character through Christ. His works done in the Father's name bear witness to this unity and to His identity as the Son of the living God.
They are of one substance and possess the same attributes, one with the eternal Father in nature, character, and purpose. Jesus' claim expresses His divinity, and His words and presence bear witness that He is the beloved Son of God. This shared divine life and unity in heaven belongs to His eternal pre-existence in light in the heavenly courts before coming to earth, in contrast to His solitude on earth in the world He had created where even nearest friends and relatives did not understand Him or His kingdom and love. Because He alone could enter fully into the Father's counsels and purposes, He shared in the work of creation and received the allegiance of heaven equally with the Father.
This unity belongs to His preexistence and glory which surpass human understanding, while Father and Son remain distinct persons who converse together in divine greatness and power. He was one with the Father before the angels were created and from the beginning, preexisting as divine, and the worlds were made by Him. That oneness gave Him pre-eminence over all the angelic host, above Satan who was next in honor to Him, with command belonging to Christ alone in His hands. He was one with the Father in the creation of the world, then clothed His divinity with humanity to save humanity and relied on divine strength in His struggle against the powers of darkness.
They are one in mind, will, and action, for Christ had the mind of God and cheerfully accepted all the Father's requirements. He lived and moved in dependence upon God and in perfect harmony with Him, so that to see Him is to see the Father because the Father dwelt in Him and did the works. His plans were devised with the Father in council before the foundation of the world, and He worked the works of Him who sent Him. In Him God's character was manifested, heaven was joined to humanity, and humanity was held in the bosom of infinite love.
Christ's Deity and Authority
“I and my Father are one” is Christ’s own testimony about Himself, declaring His oneness with God and His equality with the Father, affirming His divine power and Godhead and His identity as the Son of God. His incarnation and humbling of Himself as a servant, taking human nature and enduring temptation and suffering, does not diminish that oneness.
He who is thus one is the eternal Word made flesh and the mighty God, worthy of the same honor as the Father. He is the eternal I AM, with divine authority to give life and to judge. As the One who is one with the Father He was the Commander in the heavenly courts and the personal instructor and guide of Israel’s children.
Father and Son share the same divine power to raise the dead and to give life to whom He wills. The Father has committed all judgment to the Son, and the Son is to receive the same honor even as the Father is honored. He possesses all that belongs to the Father, shares the Father’s divine authority and glory, reigns upon the eternal throne, and gives His gifts to those who claim them by faith.
He is one with the Father in dignity, authority, and Deity. He lays His hand upon the eternal throne of God with the ease and assurance of One who rules and reigns, puts on His head the crown of Deity, sits at the right hand of God, and receives supreme honor as God with the same glory He had before the world was. From that exalted oneness He has authority to appoint a kingdom to His followers and to distribute the gifts and treasures of heaven to all who claim them by faith. The glory of God fell directly upon Him and was reflected to the world in the luster of the greatness of His character.
Speaking of Himself as well as the Father as God, He claims for Himself perfect righteousness. Though He truly took human nature and was tempted in all points as humans are from childhood to manhood, even from His first entrance into a world surrounded by corruption, He was free from all sin and error with not a trace of imperfection in life or character. He maintained spotless purity under the most trying circumstances and stood before the world untainted by surrounding corruption, so that the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in Him bodily. His saying that none is good but God does not deny this, for in saying He and His Father are one He declares His own deity and sinless perfection.
Because of this oneness His voice came with the authority of God and of the living oracles, as from One who reigned in the midst of the central glory. Therefore all excellence and glory are due to Him, and He is to receive praise and glory. Yet those for whom He labored to save from eternal ruin did not know His voice or believe His word, because the enemy was at work on human hearts to keep the light from the people.
Possessing on earth the same divine power He has in heaven, with the Father in Him and Him in the Father, He exercised God’s sole right to forgive sins when He forgave the paralytic. That act proved God Himself stood before them in Christ.
Revealing the Father's Character
God as supreme Ruler could not personally communicate with sinful people, so He sent Jesus to make Himself known. Christ veiled the splendor of His divinity and lived as a man, clothing divinity with humanity so people could know their Creator without being consumed. Through Him the personal Creator is made known as far as human beings could bear, for He is the express image of God and the outshining of the Father's glory come in human form. As Jehovah He so loved the world that He sent Jesus as a revelation of Himself, a personal Saviour who ascended and now intercedes in the heavenly courts.
Christ is the visible representative of the invisible God, so that seeing Christ is seeing the Father. He alone fully knows the Father and reveals Him to those He chooses, making known God's personality and character and love. He does not oppose the Father but bears His character as His express image, showing complete devotion to the Father's saving purpose in self-sacrifice for humanity. The Father is not humanity's enemy, for He gave His only-begotten Son so that believers may have everlasting life. That love He gives to believers so copies of His character may multiply, and those who would represent Christ's character must claim His sufficiency and be cleansed from sin.
To look on Christ is to behold God, for the character of Christ represents the character of God. He reveals the Father as merciful, compassionate, full of goodness and truth and love, and presents God as a tender, compassionate heavenly Father. His work sweeps back the hellish shadow in which Satan enveloped the Father by misinterpreting God's purposes, falsifying His character, and causing man to view God in a false light. His words dispel that false picture, proving through the ages God's love for man has never ceased.
He spoke of this intimate oneness with the natural closeness of a child speaking of parents, without using it to claim superiority over others or assume authority. His words and actions revealed His divine mission: sent by God to enlighten the world, draw people to Himself, give everlasting life, and heal every physical and spiritual disease. In Him the fullness of the Godhead bodily is displayed, and in His attributes are seen the attributes and character of the Infinite. He was the foundation of the whole Jewish economy, symbolized in types and shadows and veiled until He appeared to reveal God openly. Beholding Him exercises faith and affection, satisfies the hunger and thirst of the soul for something higher and purer than earth, and changes the beholder into His image.
One with the Father, He revealed the perfection of God with evidence that cannot be controverted that God is love, leaving every intelligence without excuse for withholding allegiance. Though one with the Father, He came in the likeness of sinful flesh and condemned sin in the flesh by a life of perfect obedience to the law of God. By that obedience He showed that men may become partakers of the divine nature, and through faith may lay hold on moral power brought within their reach and form characters after the divine similitude because of the great love with which He loved them.
Shared Suffering and Sacrifice
The oneness means that Christ did not suffer alone, for though He faced the sacrifice alone among people in Gethsemane and on the cross, God suffered with His Son in reproach and agony. This unity was claimed with divine authority, and the Father's giving up of His Son to reproach, agony and death is evidence of His boundless love for humanity. Even when the Father did not take the cup from Him, He stayed with Him, sending an angel to lift Him from the ground, to bring messages of love from the Father, to give strength to drink the cup, and to give assurance that He was gaining eternal joys for all who will accept redemption.
When Christ was crucified, God Himself was crucified with Him. Christ submitted to crucifixion although the heavenly host could have delivered Him, and the angels suffered with Him. Even those who reject Christ and choose Satan's rule were included among those for whom He yielded up His life at Calvary.
In giving His only-begotten Son to die for mankind, God gave Himself and could have given no more. This is an infinite sacrifice beyond human comprehension, evidencing boundless love to man. It is the remedy for the terrible consequences into which selfishness led the human race, and by it God made it possible for man to be redeemed and restored to oneness with Him.
Because they are one, God Himself suffered in the suffering of His Son. Having undertaken the work of redemption He spares nothing however costly, withholding not heaven itself but heaping gift upon gift until the world is flooded with boundless mercy and love and joy is made full. That unity while Jesus walked the earth in humanity bears the credentials of His divinity to the world, and reveals a love toward humanity so large and unbounded that the Father loves the Son for laying down His life to recover humanity.
As the Prince of heaven and Prince of light, one with the Father, He gave Himself to redeem the fallen human race. The One who is one with the Father came to bridge the gulf that sin had made between humanity and God and to rescue people from sin and ruin, suffering humanity's agony and dying on Calvary's cross. He is the Son of the infinite God who gave Himself in suffering, self-denial and self-sacrifice to save fallen man, and as the promised Teacher sent by God He clothed His divinity with humanity and came to reveal what humanity was meant to be without sin. He was the glory hidden in the pillar of cloud and the One whom all the sacrificial offerings pointed to, whose death as antitype of the types joins mercy and justice in harmony and love without parallel. Moses knew Him through the sacrifices and through the revelation of God's goodness, image, excellency and glory, and knew Him as the Mediator and guardian of Israel who was the protection His people needed, so that Israel was saved through Christ just as fully as people are today.
Safety of the Sheep
I and my Father are one secures the sheep by placing them in united keeping, for those who hear His voice and follow Him receive eternal life and no one can snatch them from Christ's hand or from the Father's hand. This oneness is the pattern for the believer's union with Christ, in which those who receive Him by faith become one with Him. That spiritual bond is closer and more saving than natural family ties, so that even His mother was more truly related to Him by believing and obeying His words, while His brothers gained no spiritual benefit from kinship unless they accepted Him as personal Saviour.
His being one with the Father was shown in a life that fulfilled the law by continual obedience to God's commands, giving followers an example to obey God in His strength and ultimately stand perfect before God. For the same reason the law of the Father and the gospel of Christ are in perfect harmony and cannot be set against each other, with true righteousness keeping both the letter of the law and its spirit pointing to Christ as the atoning sacrifice through whom the sinner can meet its requirements. Turning from the Giver of the law is therefore turning from Christ, because Christ is one with the Father.
The authority of the Son and the law He spoke at Sinai are the Father's authority and character as well as His own, and Christ's glory reflects the Father's glory. In giving Himself through Christ to save sinful humanity, God expressed His love without changing His unalterable law, since not one precept of the Father's law could be altered to excuse man in his fallen condition. The verse also shows Father and Son united in loving concern for God's chosen people, jointly desiring their growth and fruitfulness as vineyard owner and gardener share interest in the fig tree, with the Son giving further opportunity and care so they may become trees of righteousness bearing fruit that blesses the world.
Pattern for Believers' Unity
The oneness declared in I and my Father are one is the pattern for believers to be one in heart and soul, united with Christ in God. They are to work together to build one another up, uniting their illuminated, inspired, and sanctified powers into a complete whole. Joined with Jesus' prayer that His followers be in Him and He in them, their harmony bears witness to the world that the Father sent Jesus and loves them. The Holy Spirit glorifies Christ by revealing this oneness, and Christ's true disciples reflect it as they become like Him and show His great love and works of infinite love to the world through their unity in and through Him.
Through Christ, man is brought into oneness with the Father and into fellowship and relationship with God. While Jesus walked the earth in human dress He was still one with His Father, and that oneness is unity and love which proves His divinity to the world. That same oneness is the pattern for believers taken into partnership with Christ, transformed in character and joined to Him by love, to prove that Christ can reshape, purify, and ennoble the soul, withholding nothing until joy is made full. Because they are one, God Himself suffered in the suffering of His Son, and having undertaken redemption He spares nothing however costly, withholding not heaven itself but heaping gift upon gift until the world is flooded with mercy and love.
Christ is the visible representative of the invisible God and embodies God's love, and He gives that love to believers so that copies of His character may multiply. The Father and the Son are one while each has a distinct personality, and the Son came to the world in human form, laying aside His royal robe and crown and royal status and clothing His divinity with humanity. Through His infinite sacrifice humanity may become partakers of the divine nature and escape the world's corruption through lust.
Christ and His Father are one in united labor, and this oneness is the model for unity among workers in sanitariums, especially physicians serving in responsible positions. They are to labor in similar unity with their brethren and with those laboring in the ministry of the Word, exercising God-given tact to show that in dealing with the sick and suffering they are carrying on the very same work. Christ's own life displays this oneness, for He taught gospel truths from the Scriptures and healed the afflicted who came to Him for relief, acting as the greatest Physician the world ever knew by combining healing work with the imparting of soul-saving truth.
Opposition and Dividing Tactics
The works done in the Father's name bear witness that Father and Son are one, with the Father in Christ and Christ in the Father, and declare His identity as the Son of God, which the Jews understood as making Himself God. That claim of oneness was made in condescending love and great mercy, yet it was met by Pharisees and Sadducees united together in opposition with increased hatred. They charged Him with blasphemy and madness and aimed to destroy His influence.
The Father and the Son are one and cannot be separated, and the special work of Satan is to divide them. He leads the Jews to cry for the Father and the law while rejecting the Son and denying His power to give life and work miracles, and he leads the Christian world to cry for Christ and the gospel while rejecting the Father and His law. Both rejections dishonor God, for the law is the foundation of His government in heaven and on earth, and the gospel runs from Genesis to Revelation, with every act to turn men from sin or bring forgiveness pointing to Christ as the steppingstone by which man is exalted. Christ came to die because not one precept of His Father's law could be altered to excuse man in his fallen condition, proving that Father and Son act together and that God is glorified only by obedience to His law through Christ. His exaltation as one with God, which He possessed before the angels were created, gave Him preeminence over all the angelic host and placed command belonging to Him alone in His hands. Satan, who was next in honor to Him, envied that position and in ambition tried to assume it, stirred to envy and jealousy by that oneness.