Listen:  147.5

First of all, Scripture is crystal-clear that God the Father and Jesus, the Son of God, are one. Jesus said in John 10:30, “I and my Father are one.” Even the enemies of the Lord Jesus knew He was making this claim. In John 5:17-18 we read, “But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.” We can add to these verses, John 1:1 which says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Here we are expressly told that the Word was both “with God” and He “was God.” How can that be? How could the Word, which we learn later in verse 14 of this chapter is Jesus Christ, be a separate Person from God the Father and at the same time be God? The answer may not satisfy our human logic or powers of reason, but faith enables us to see, as another has said, that “God is one God who at the same time subsists in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each Person is no less God than the other, each having the same attributes, power, and glory, and co-equal One with Another.”

Once we see that Jesus wasn’t claiming to be THE SAME PERSON as God the Father, the truth becomes clearer. His claim, as we just saw, was that He shared the same attributes, power, and glory as God the Father and so He too, was God. Because God the Father and Jesus are TWO SEPARATE PERSONS, it was possible for Jesus to be forsaken of God the Father on the cross. It was also possible for Jesus to ascend to heaven and to sit on the right hand of His Father.

Let’s look a little deeper into the marvelous truth that Jesus, the Son of God, was one with the Father. In John 1:18 we read, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which was in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” One of the main reasons for the incarnation of the Son of God was so that He could REVEAL GOD THE FATHER TO MEN. Up until this time God had given revelations of Himself to men through Creation and through the Law of Moses, but they were PARTIAL revelations of who God was. God wanted mankind to know Him FULLY, so He sent His Son into this world to walk among men so they could see the truth of 1 Timothy 3:16, that “God was manifest in the flesh.” In Creation men could see God’s POWER; in the Law they learned that God was HOLY; but through Jesus Christ they could behold the very NATURE of God. 1 John 4:8 declares “God is love,” and 1 John 1:5 informs us that “God is light.” This is God’s NATURE; He is a loving and compassionate God, and He is a holy and righteous God. God’s nature was on perfect display in His Son! From the manger to the cross the Lord Jesus manifested God’s love and holiness in everything He did and said. This means that when men beheld the Lord Jesus, they were, in truth, beholding God the Father as well, for their nature is the same. This truth is seen beautifully in John 14:7-9, “If ye had known Me, ye would have known my Father also: and from now on ye know Him, and have seen Him. Philip said to Him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father, so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’” (NKJV).

I would like to close with a verse I alluded to earlier. John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.” Have you, dear friend, ever seen that Jesus was not just a man, but that He was “God manifest in the flesh?” If so, you have indeed “beheld His glory.” And in seeing His glory, you have also seen “the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.” By seeing Jesus and His glory, you have seen the glory of the Father, and you have seen the amazing truth that we have been musing on, that THEY ARE ONE!  (147.5)  (DO)