
“The Father And I Are One”
John 10
22 It was now winter, and Jesus was in Jerusalem at the time of Hanukkah, the Festival of Dedication. 23 He was in the Temple, walking through the section known as Solomon’s Colonnade. 24 The people surrounded him and asked, “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”
25 Jesus replied, “I have already told you, and you don’t believe me. The proof is the work I do in my Father’s name. 26 But you don’t believe me because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from me, 29 for my Father has given them to me, and he is more powerful than anyone else. No one can snatch them from the Father’s hand. 30 The Father and I are one.”
31 Once again the people picked up stones to kill him.
32 Jesus said, “At my Father’s direction I have done many good works. For which one are you going to stone me?”
33 They replied, “We’re stoning you not for any good work, but for blasphemy! You, a mere man, claim to be God.”
- What is the festival of Dedication?
In 167 BC , the Syrian leader Antiochus Epiphanes crushed Jerusalem and polluted the temple, setting up a pagan altar (to himself!) In the temple to displace Israel’s God. He is though he appears historically before Jesus - a type of ‘AntiChrist’. In apocryphal writings, specifically the books of Maccabees, we learn about the Jewish revolt against this vile incursion. - Carson summarizes for us:
Chafing under the brutal repression, under which possession of any part of the Hebrew Scriptures was a capital offense, many Jews revolted and developed the fine art of guerilla warfare. Eventually they grew strong enough to overthrow the oppressor, and, under the leadership of Judas Maccabaeus (‘Judas the Hammer’), they recaptured the temple and reconsecrated it to God on 25 Kislev (the lunar month that approximately coincides with December), 164 BC. - The people celebrated the re-dedication of the temple for eight days, and it was decreed that a similar eight-day Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah) should be held every year, beginning on 25 Kislev
(cf. 1 Macc. 4:36–59; 2 Macc. 1:9, 18; 10:1–8). Certainly the celebration was religious (and necessarily political!) from this time on.
It was also called the Feast of Lights, because of the lighting of lamps and candles in Jewish homes to celebrate the Feast, symbols deployed because the right to worship ‘appeared to us (hēmin phanēnai, perhaps “shone upon us”) at a time when we hardly dared hope for it’ (Jos., Ant. xii. 325). Both the use of lights and the joyousness of the occasion ensured that it would be compared with the Feast of Tabernacles (cf. 7:2); indeed, it was called ‘a Feast of Tabernacles in the month Kislev’ (2 Macc. 1:9). Unlike Tabernacles, however, it could be celebrated at home
John 10.23
He was in the Temple, walking through the section known as Solomon’s Colonnade. 24 The people surrounded him and asked, “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”
- “How long are you going to keep us in suspense?
If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” - This is actually nicer than the language indicates. These critics/skeptics/enemies of Jesus are asking ‘how long will you keep annoying us?’
- They’re not asking so that they can clearly and confidently unambiguously worship Jesus, they’re looking to ‘get on with it’, settle the matter and finish their attack on Jesus.
John 10
25 Jesus replied, “I have already told you, and you don’t believe me. The proof is the work I do in my Father’s name. 26 But you don’t believe me because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from me, 29 for my Father has given them to me, and he is more powerful than anyone else. No one can snatch them from the Father’s hand. 30 The Father and I are one.”
31 Once again the people picked up stones to kill him. 32 Jesus said, “At my Father’s direction I have done many good works. For which one are you going to stone me?”
33 They replied, “We’re stoning you not for any good work, but for blasphemy! You, a mere man, claim to be God.”
- “It is from unbelief that every claim that Jesus was anything but God springs. Jesus was a good teacher. Jesus was a good philosopher. Jesus was a model of benevolent humanity. All those make Jesus less than He claimed to be.
Jesus says here “The Father and I are one”.
Carson: all of his ministry, both words and deeds, pointed in the one direction: in that sense he had told them. Even his works (…which includes his miracles), done in the Father’s name as the revelation of the Father’s will and the embodiment of the Father’s power, taken cumulatively, testify that the Father has sent him. It is not that miracles cannot be performed by others, but that the array of his deeds—including the restoration of a man paralyzed for thirty-eight years, the thoroughly attested healing of a man born blind, and, shortly, the resurrection of a man indisputably dead—along with the tone and content of his teaching, speak volumes on his behalf.
- What then can explain the obtuseness of so many hearers? It is that they do not belong to Jesus’ sheep.
John 10
27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from me, 29 for my Father has given them to me, and he is more powerful than anyone else. No one can snatch them from the Father’s hand.
30 The Father and I are one.”
Who then can steal from God? Who has strength or subtlety sufficient to overpower or outwit the sovereign Father? My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. If the Father is greater than all things or persons, there is no force or being sufficient to sever the relation between the true believer and Jesus Christ. In short, as Paul would say to the Colossian believers, ‘your life is now hidden with Christ in God’ (Col. 3:3). There can be no greater security.
You will never perish following Christ. Not because you’re a great follower, but because He is the Perfect One.
Hebrews 12.2
We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.