''i and the father are one'' said Jesus in john's gospel . but what did he mean ?
in many conversations i've had with christians over the years particularly missionaries , this
phrase , this verse in the gospel of john is often produced as proof that Jesus claimed to be God .
i've always found it a very ambiguous statement "i and the father are one" i want to say one what ?
one in will and purpose or one in substance and essence . and that of course reminds one of
the council of Nicea in the fourth century which defined the sun as a one being or one substance
with the father . so i thought it might be helpful to refer to a top new testament scholar , a
chap called " William Barclay " who i featured in a video before . he was a Scottish author , a church of
scotland minister and a professor of divinity and biblical criticism at the university of glasgow in
Scotland . and he wrote a very popular set of bible commentaries on the new testament and that have
sold literally millions . and it's one of these i want to refer to where he talks about this
very passage and he offers an explanation that i personally find satisfying and i wonder what
you think . so professor William Barclay writes : now we come to the supreme claim "i and the father are
one" said Jesus in john 10 30. what did he mean ? is it absolute mystery or can we understand at least
a little of it . are we driven to interpret it in terms of essence and substance and all the rest
of the metaphysical and philosophic notions about which the makers of the creed fought and argued .
has one to be a theologian and a philosopher to grasp even a fragment of the meaning of this
tremendous statement . if we go to the bible itself for the interpretation , we find that it is in fact
so simple that anyone can grasp it . in john 17 11 we read of the prayer of jesus for his followers
before he went to his death : holy father ; protect them in your name that you have given me that they
may be one as we are one . and Barclay translates this in bold , that they may be one as we are one .
Jesus conceived of the unity of christian with christian as the same kind as his unity with god .
in the same passage Jesus goes on : i ask not only on behalf of these , but also on behalf of those
who will believe in me and through their word that they may all be one as you father are in me and i
am in you . may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you
have sent me . the glory that you have given me i also have given them so that they may be one
as we are one . (that bit at the end there) so that they may be one just as we are one 17 20 to 22.
Jesus is saying with simplicity and with a clarity which none can mistake , that the purpose
of the christian life is that christians should be one as he and his father are one .
and that's William Barclay " The Gospel of John Volume 2" page 86 to 87. now i find that very
persuasive . it's the same language that jesus is using in his prayer to god that his disciples
should be a one with them with himself and god and that in the same way that i and the father are
one . so there's no need really to bring in later ideas of substance and essence
from the christian tradition and in council of Nicea and the council of Chalcedon .
it's there in the text itself so the natural meaning i think "i and the father are one" is one of the
unity of purpose and will and the disciples too should share in that unity . so it's not a claim for
deity on jesus part at all , in fact it's the opposite , he's talking to god about the unity
he wants for everyone . and of course i should really say also that it's virtually universal
amongst biblical scholars by this i mean these are professors that teach
at Oxford and Cambridge , Harvard , Yale all the great universities . they are virtually unanimous
that the very exalted claims of Jesus which you do find in john's gospel like "i am the way ,
the truth and the life" "before abraham was ,i am" and so on . these 'i am' claims and similar ones
like them are not historical , they do not go back to the historical Jesus . and there are very good
historical reasons why they don't . and this is a consensus in new testament studies is quite rare
but this is a virtual consensus across the board amongst liberals and conservatives and catholics
and protestants and so on , the atheists . they all agree that these amazing statements
do not go back to the historical Jesus and this is something that the average person in the pew , the
average church goer is not told about . certainly not by their pastors and ministers and priests
for reasons which we won't go into here , they don't share the information because the priests and the
ministers themselves have been trained and taught by the professors in seminaries , in universities
across the west . but the information is not usually passed on . and this i think is an intellectual
scandal of the highest order , but that's a subject for another video . until next time