(010) – I AND THE FATHER ARE ONE

 

How can this statement of Jesus be understood “I and the Father are one”?

SAME NATURE? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

SAME POWER? “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matt. 28:18).

SAME LOVE? “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

SAME PURPOSE? “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent” (John 6:29).

SAME GOODNESS? And He [Jesus] said to him, ‘Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good” (Matt. 19:17).

SAME SPIRIT? However you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him” (Matt. 19:17). 

SAME GLORY? “And now, glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was” (John 17:5).

SAME AUTHORSHIP OF CREATION? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by Him; and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being (John 1:1-3).

SAME DOMINIUM? “…and all things that are Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine; and I have been glorified in them” (John 17:10).

SAME HOLINESS?  “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens” (Rev. 3:7).

THE QUEST GOES ON: What did Jesus mean when he said: “The Father and I are one”? Jesus meant to reveal that wherever the Son is not, the Father is not, either. Christ wasn’t in the Old Testament, therefore, the Father was not there either. The Old Testament prophecies said that the Christ would come. “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me” (John 5:39). “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!” (Luke 24:25).

If Jesus were the same Jehovah of the Old Testament, he would have said: “I have come on My own initiative”. But, on the contrary, he said: “If God were your Father, you would love Me; for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I HAVE NOT EVEN COME ON MY OWN INITIATIVE, but He sent Me” (John 8:42). Jesus wished to reveal that the Father doesn’t exist outside the Son: “No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him” (John 1:18).

If God were seen through the Son, He might be Jehovah, but God is seen in the Son, because they are one in essence. “Phillip said to Him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.’  Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Phillip? HE WHO HAS SEEN ME HAS SEEN THE FATHER’ ” (John 14:8-9). Jesus doesn’t point to the Father saying, “It is this one or it is that one”, but says: “TO LOOK AT ME IS TO LOOK AT THE FATHER WHO IS IN ME”. “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works” (John 14:10).

The Father entrusted everything in the hands of the Son, thus being unable to manifest Himself outside the Son, or even prior to the Son. “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands” (John 13:3) “All things that the Father has are Mine” (John 16:15). “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hands” (John 3:35). “For not even the Father judges any one, but He has given all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22). Jehovah judged men before the Son had come; this was against John 5:22. All is all.

If God was judging men before Christ came, it means that He had not given all judgment to the Son, only part of the judgment, since the Son could not deliver the ones condemned by the Father, as this would constitute two judgments. Because the Father had determined one only judgment by the hands of the Son, the previous judgments had not been true judgments (Acts 17:31). This is the reason why Jesus Christ will judge Sodom and Gomorrah that were judged and condemned by Jehovah, again (Gen. 19:24-25 and Matt. 11:24).

The Father God revealed in Jesus Christ cannot be seen nor known apart from Jesus, because the good works that Jesus did are the expression of the love of the Father “…the works that I do in My Father’s name, these bear witness of Me” (John 10:25) “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?” (John 10:32)  “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father” (John 10:37-38). “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him” (John 14:7).

No one can see the Father, hear the Father, and know the Father apart from Jesus Christ. For this reason, Jesus told them, “I am the truth, the way, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.” (John 14:6) Jesus had not said, “nobody goes to the Father”, but, “nobody comes to the Father”, because the Father is in Him, and not outside of Him.

The works that Jehovah does are works of evil, not works of love (Amos 3:6;  Jer. 11:17; 18:11 and 21:10). For this reason Jehovah was outside of Christ. In John 3:19-21 Jesus says that evil is darknessIf Jehovah does what is evil, and evil is darkness, Jehovah is the god of darkness (Ex. 20:21 and Ps. 18:11).

Finally, we read in Matthew: “… and no one knows the Son, except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Matt.11:27). Adam knew Jehovah; Cain knew Jehovah, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, etc.. Jehovah prided himself in being known: “…but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am Jehovah” (Jer. 9:24). “Thus says the Lord God, ‘On the day when I chose Israel and swore to the descendants of the House of Jacob AND MADE MYSELF KNOWN TO THEM IN THE LAND OF EGYPT” (Ezek. 20:5). Nobody knows the Father, though, except the Son. And if Jehovah made himself known, has the Son made a useless revelation? When Jesus says, “anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him”, declares that the revelation of the Father isn’t public, but private. Christ doesn’t reveal Him to everybody, but only to the saints. Matthew, John, Paul and the other apostles have not revealed the Father, because they didn’t feel up to doing the works, which were exclusively Jesus’ works. They would be usurpers. It is easy to determine who is not the Father, because the one that is not the Father, kills, send plagues and pestilence, sends to captivity, delivers the just to the devil, makes mothers eat their offspring. It is easy to find out that Jehovah is not the Father, neither Jesus. Only the blind think they can prove that the usurper is the Father, for his works are so contrary to His, as the light is different from the darkness, and Hell is different from Heaven. If a man can take the name of God and also prophesy in the name of God, falsely, why can’t an angel, who is much higher than men, usurp the place of God before blind men? This is the reason why the one who worships Jesus only, has the Father also (1 John 2:23). Why does Jesus show up only in the Old Testament? Because He didn’t want to be a co-operator with the works of darkness. When Jehovah entered the History of men, calamities, curses, and havoc began to happen. Christ came in person in order to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8).

By Pastor Olavo Silveira Pereira

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