John 10:24-39 Then came the Jews round about him, and said to him, How long do you make us to doubt? If you be the Christ, tell us plainly.… What kind of unity is that which the context obliges us to see in this solemn statement? Is it such a unity as that which our Lord desired for His followers in His intercessory prayer; a unity of spiritual communion, of reciprocal love, of common participation in an imparted heaven-sent nature (John 17:11, 22, 23)? Is it a unity of design and cooperation, such as that which, in varying degrees, is shared by all true workers with God (1 Corinthians 3:3)? How would either of these lower unities sustain the full sense of the context, which represents the hand of the Son as one with the hand, i.e., with the love and power of the Father, securing to the souls of men an effectual preservation from eternal ruin? A unity like this must be a dynamic unity, as distinct from any mere moral or intellectual union, such as might exist between a creature and its God. Deny this dynamic unity, and you destroy the internal connection of the passage; admit it, and you admit, by necessary implication, a unity of Essence. The power of the Son, which shields the redeemed from the foes of their salvation, is the very power of the Father; and this identity of power is itself the outflow and manifestation of a oneness of nature. Not that at this height of contemplation the person of the Son, so distinctly manifested just now in the work of guarding His redeemed, melts away into any mere aspect or relation of the Divine Being in His dealing with His creatures. As St. observes, the "unum" saves us from the charabdis of ; the "sumus" is our safeguard from the Scylla of . The Son within the incommunicable unity of God is still Himself; He is not the Father but the Son. Yet this personal subsistence is in the mystery of the Divine life strictly compatible with unity of essence; the Father and the Son are one Thing. (Canon Liddon.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. |
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