I and the Father Are One, Part 1

I and the father are one. The oneness that Jesus is claiming is not oneness in purpose, it is not oneness in theological agreement. The oneness that he is talking about his oneness in nature. Oneness, in essence, I and the father are one. Only when there far enough away. Do they realize what the big W is for palm trees and a W shape that dip into the Hollywood archives to say it's possible to be so close to something that you can't see it clearly or you miss it altogether and that can be true in your relationship with Christ even if you been walking with him for years the words of Christ and the great doctrines of our faith can become so familiar that they can lose their power.

So even if you're a long-time believer and certainly if your new Christian, I think you'll benefit from John MacArthur's message today on grace to you as he examines these stunning words from Christ.

Jesus said, I and the father are one.

The title of John series rediscovering the Christ of Scripture, and now here's John MacArthur. Open your Bible to the 10th chapter of the Gospel of John chapter 10 is John's final picture of Jesus public ministry final picture now we remember that the purpose of John is not to give us every detail about the life of Jesus. John closes his gospel by saying if you wrote down everything that Jesus did the books of the world couldn't contain so what we have here is a short look at the life of Christ with a specific purpose and the purpose is given in chapter 20 and verse 31.

These have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God and that believing you may have life in his name. There's a historical element that you may know that he's the son of God is a spiritual element that you may believe and have eternal life.

That's John's purpose. There's plenty here to prove Jesus is the Messiah long-awaited anointed king, but God will send the Redeemer there's enough here to know that he is God in human flesh. There's enough here to believe that and by believing it have eternal life. That's John's purpose. So the opening 10 chapters of this gospel lay out primarily the claims of Jesus.

John starts in chapter 1 the word was with God the Word was God the Word became flesh. John's testimony we have the testimony of John the Baptist concerning the Messiah, the Redeemer of the Lamb of God we have the testimony of the early apostles.

We have found him.

We have found him.

We have found the one who is Messiah, the son of God. The whole purpose of John's Gospel is to declare the deity of Jesus Christ. This then in chapter 10 is the clearest, most explicit statement of the deity of Christ. Look at verse 30 of John 10 I and the father are one, I and the father are one. The oneness that Jesus is claiming is not oneness in purpose is not oneness in mission. It is not oneness in theological agreement. The oneness that he is talking about his oneness in nature.

Oneness, in essence, oneness in being and that has clearly been declared through the whole of the epistle, John 11 in the beginning was the word the word was with God the Word was God. Verse 14 the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We saw his glory.

What glory wasn't the glory as of the protonic costs the premier one from the father full of grace and truth. Declaration of his of his absolute deity in the fifth chapter. Remember verse 17 he said my father is working until now, and I myself am working. I do what the father does. I have the prerogatives, the authority, the right, the power being to do exactly what God does. They understood what he was saying.

Verse 18. For this reason, therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him because he not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God his own father, making himself equal with God, so let the Jews tell us the enemies of Jesus what he meant when he called himself son of God. They knew what he meant he was claiming to have the same essence as God as a son has the same essence as his father of this infuriated the Jews this claim to deity as we all know and as a result, they tried to kill him. They try to kill them on the spot. Their fury reaches a fever pitch where they become like a massive vigilantes who want to snuff out his life and by the time we get to the end of chapter 10 for the fourth time they will have designs on killing him on the spot and he will have to escape verse 39 of chapter 10 tells us that at the end of chapter 8. They picked up stones to throw at him. But Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple at the end of chapter 10 verse 39 they were seeking again to seize him and eluded their grasp back in chapter 7. Just as another illustration. Verse one. The Jews were seeking to kill him that this is a steady, relentless desire on their part to reach some escalated moment when in the eyes of the crowds, they will be justified in executing him on the spot they knew exactly what he was intending to say when he said he was the son of God.

They knew he was claiming the same essence as God. That's how they used the expression, son of by someone was called a son of the Lyle. It would be's. He would be manifesting the same wicked nature as Satan. If someone was called as said James and John were sons of thunder. It meant that they had a volatility date. They had a disposition of volatility to say you're the son of God is to claim to have the same essence as God himself in John one verse 34 testimony of John. I myself have seen and testified that this is the son of God. In John chapter 1 verse 49 Nathaniel says Rabbi you are the son of God. This is how clearly Jesus had declared who he was. It was absolutely unmistakable. So we come to chapter 10 were not at all surprised that this has become a huge issue.

Verse 31 Jesus makes the most clear, precise declaration I and the father are one verse 31 the Jews pick up stones again to stone him. Jesus stops them. He answered and said I showed you many good works from the father, for which of them are you stoning me the Jews answered him for a good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy and because you being a man make yourself out to be God. They had no doubt what he was going absolutely no doubt they had come to understand that Jesus was claiming to be God, the great I am the creator himself the one true eternal God in human flesh. The other writers of the Gospels of firmness Matthew in chapter 1 verse 23 introduces the child as a manual, which is God with us. Mark 11.

Mark begins his history the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God. Luke launches in chapter 1. A description of the birth of the child and identifies the child as the holy child, the son of God. John 11. He was God. Listen any identification, any identification of Jesus by anyone, anytime, that makes him less than God is blasphemy. It is blasphemy, the leaders of Israel had turned blasphemy on its head.

They had turned Jesus into a blasphemer when they were the blasphemers for denying his deity. They accused him of blasphemy and they knew that blasphemy genuine blasphemy had a death penalty placed upon it. Leviticus 2416 blasphemers to be stoned to death in their minds. Jesus was a blasphemer. In reality, they were the blasphemers so is anyone who denies the nature of Christ as God. John certainly features this in his gospel, but he also is clear about it in his epistle, who is the liar that the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ. This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the son. Whoever denies the son does not have the father, the one who confesses the son has the father you get the son and the father as one or you are cursed you are cursed you are a blasphemer you are anti-Christ any view of Christ that is less then God is an antichrist statement. It was for blasphemy really in the end that these leaders of Israel had dogged his steps and eventually got him to a Roman cross. It was blasphemy at the end of the chapter 22 of Luke, Jesus is before the Sanhedrin and they say to him, are you the son of God, then, and he said to them, yes I am. Yes I am and he said the I am the name of God again and then they said what further need. Do we have of testimony we have herded ourselves from his own mouth and the whole body of them got up and brought him before Pilate trumped up some lie about him overthrowing Caesar to get Pilate involved, but it was blasphemy that they accused him of because he said he was God. So here again as we look at John 10.

It's the same issue.

John 19 seven puts it this way, the Jews said, we have a law Leviticus 2416 and by that law he ought to die because he made himself out to be the son of God execution because of blasphemy. Now, at this point were in John 10. The blasphemy is fixed and Jesus is not the blasphemer. They are here is John's final scene in our Lord's public ministry is displayed his deity through his words and works day after day after day, three years across Israel words clearly from heaven. No one ever spoke like him works clearly from heaven.

Nicodemus summed it up when he said no one can do the things you do unless God is with him. But the nation of Israel. The Jews led by the apostate sons of Satan who had devised and perpetrated the damning form of Judaism were producing sons of hell and collectively the nation rejects Christ in the face of all the evidence.

This was prophesied by the way, this is no surprise at all because if you go back to that love at Isaiah 53 it begins this way as it looks prophetically at the arrival of Christ, who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed, a prophecy that they wouldn't believe and they didn't then Isaiah goes on to say, we looked at him and he was nothing he was less than nothing.

We esteemed him not. We had our faces from him. He was despicable. The whole nation had been led by its leaders to see him as a blasphemer and by the way, he is either God or he is a blasphemer is really nothing in the middle. The constant rejection of the leaders and the people has been chronicled in every chapter of John in chapter 1 came unto his own his own received him not. In chapter 2 is a massive conflict between him and the leaders of Israel when he goes in and assaults the corruption of the temple. We we see the same hostility in chapter 3 we see it again and for we see it in five we see it in 678 910 1112 and 12 is the last chapter before the upper room discourse. So at the very end of public encounters during passion week the same hateful hostility exists. It culminates here in chapter 10, so that in verses 22 to 42. This final section, we really see John summing up the rejection of the son of God, the Messiah, by the people of Israel.

There are five scenes here and I don't want to rush through them there so much profound theological truth here.

The first scene is confrontational. It is called will give some CDs as we go confrontation and confrontation happened all the time all the time. By the way where in the feasts section of John's Gospel started in chapter 5 chapter 5 verse one and that John is showing these confrontations. These encounters these setpoints of rejection at feasts were in Jerusalem were in the temple and of the feast we you remember starting in chapter 5 begin in chapter 7 and now as we come to chapter 10 verse 22. There's another feast so were in the season of feasts and John uses those for the episodes that describe this rejection, not just a word to say about confrontations that the leaders of Israel confronted Jesus frequently you see that in Matthew, Mark, and Luke as well as John and they they like to confront him with a question so will say this is confrontation by means of an inquiry that that they would come and ask a question.

Now you might say will that's a good thing except for the fact they had such corrupt motives.

They had no desire for information they had no desire for clarification. They only wanted to put him in a public situation where he would say something that was so blasphemous, they would be justified in taking his life pattern then is familiar. They confront him.

They propose a question.

He answers the question reiterates his claim to be the son of God to be the Messiah.

They react with unbelief, fury, anger, seek to grab him killing him on the spot and he escapes chapter 10 for the fourth time and it happened that these feasts and the reason they made issues out of these feasts and John makes issues out of them is because that would be a place where they could get some public outcry going, they could manipulate the crowd so let's look at the setting verse 22.

At that time it was the feast of Dedication Took Pl. in Jerusalem, all the great feasts took place there. You might not heard of the feast of dedication know if you're looking for the feast of dedication in the Old Testament. It's not there is not an Old Testament. These it's now two months after the feast of Tabernacles or Booths which celebrated the wilderness wandering and that was September October issue in the Jewish calendar, so were now two months later and this is the feast of dedication.

This is the last annual feast each year. If you go by our calendar that the Jews celebrate. It has another name is also called feast of lights and the the Jewish contemporary Jewish word for that is Hanukkah. We all know about Hanukkah, why did they call it the feast of lights because the way they celebrated it was to light candles and lamps in all their houses as a symbol of their celebration. It always happens on the Jewish calendar 25th day of kiss live which is a November December calendar time 25th day of kiss while it's not an Old Testament feast that has a very interesting tradition that predates the New Testament.

You do remember that between the Old Testament and the New Testament. There's a 400 year.

Will refer to it obviously is the inner test middle. The last prophet in the Old Testament goes silent. There's no prophecy no revelation until John the Baptist shows up in the word of the Lord comes. Zacharias and Elizabeth about John and then you have the story of Christ. But in the middle. There's 400 years. That was 400 very very difficult years for the Jews very difficult. They were apostate rejected God went through lots of judgment.

Lots of suffering, but it sort of reached an ethical level around 170 years before Christ.

So 160 to 170 BC a man came along a Syrian monarch very powerful Syrian monarch Siri is not a new enemy to Israel this Syrian monarch was named Antiochus and he was like all of them. He was a narcissistic self-promoting madman and so he called himself Antiochus epiphanies, which means Antiochus these the supreme one. The people change one letter and called him Antiochus epiphanies, which means the madman so this Syrian ruler Antiochus powerful ruler the devoting of Greek culture and he wants power over Israel. He wants what modern Syrians want with a modern Middle Eastern Arabic world want he wants Israel and he is the first pagan king who ever persecuted Jews for their religion is the first he was a devoting of Greek culture, which means he was polytheistic multiple gods in note 167 BC he made a law and he imposed that law on everybody and it was a law that was essentially called Hellenization from the Greek word Elaine a, which means Greek or nations or Gentiles. He wanted a Hellenized everybody wanted to standardize everybody in the Jews wouldn't accept pagan religion, so he entered Jerusalem with a mighty force in 170 BC and he conquered the temple and immediately went inside the temple into the holy of holies and slaughtered a pig in the holy of holies. Then he erected a statue of Zeus, there.

That was the start of a systematic effort to stamp out Judaism. He was brutal in his impression of the Jews and by the way, as they always do. They clung tenaciously to their religion under his direction. There were slaughtered, they were required to make sacrifices to pagan gods or die, that they were not allowed to a read or possess any portion of Old Testament Scripture, wherever Old Testament scrolls could be found. They were collected and burned. They were forbidden to give any kind of honor on the Sabbath day they were forbidden to circumcise their children savage persecution because the pious Jews. The revolt as you would expect fight back and they were led by a priest named Matta Sias and met her thighs had sons, one of his sons was a man named Judas Maccabeus and under the leadership of this really effective powerful warrior leader Judas Maccabeus. They retook the Jews retook Jerusalem and interestingly enough, it was on the 25th of kiss live that they liberated the temple rededicated it and establish the feast of dedication to commemorate the liberation of the temple. The rededication of the Temple and the some historical information that Antiochus did what he did on the 25th of Kislev, and they liberated it on the 25th of Kislev. Years later, to that date became an important date.

This is grace to you with John MacArthur. Thanks for being with us. John's been our featured teacher for over five decades is also Chancellor of the Masters University in seminary and he's titled his series rediscovering the Christ of Scripture John. There are a lot of people who say they don't believe Jesus is God, but they do believe he was a good and noble teacher I've heard you say many times that that's an untenable position. It's illogical. You can't really consistently hold the view that Jesus was good. If he wasn't God so talk about that for a minute if if so, to commit to you and said I'm God your first reaction would not be will he he must be a good person.

Your first reaction would be. He's insane right he's lost his mind.

You don't have that option with Jesus think it was CS Lewis who said he's either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord of all we know is not a liar because no one ever spoke the truth, the way he spoke it we know is not a lunatic when he claimed to be God because he demonstrated it he demonstrated by showing power over Satan power over disease power over death and he rose from the dead himself, which leaves us with only one possibility. He is who he claims to be net note. Nobody could say I'm God and be believed in less he could validate that and that's exactly what our Lord Jesus did in fact the whole purpose of the Gospels. The whole purpose of the rest of the New Testament is to demonstrate by divine revelation that Jesus is who he claimed to be, and did what he claimed to do this is so foundational, so critical of and talking about all we gonna do it one more time today we have a book called the deity of Christ. It is the starting point of the gospel.

You may think you know who Jesus is. But if you're wrong, you end up in hell because you must believe the truth about the Lord Jesus Christ. And that means if you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead and confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, you will be saved. Apart from that, there's no salvation so get a copy of the deity of Christ. Here's a good news will send it to you free. If you've never contacted Grace to you before request the free book, the deity of Christ would be glad to send 1 Your Way.

Nothing is more critical than knowing the truth about Jesus. This book, the deity of Christ is great for personal study and for reading with your family again.

It's free if you've never contacted us before ask for your copy today. Call our toll-free number 855 grace or go to our website TTY.or the book will help you answer questions like how can I know Jesus is God and how should that truth affect my day-to-day life and what are some key Bible passages for explaining to others that Jesus is God.

Remember, will send you this book free. If you've never contacted us before ask for it by name deity of Christ. When you call 855 grace or you can make your request@thewebsitetty.org and when you get in touch let us know how God is using John's current study rediscovering the Christ of Scripture to help you better understand Christ's incredible grace and to strengthen your love for him.

We want to hear stories like that.

So send your email to letters@tty.org that's our email once more letters@tty.org or you can write to Grace to you. Box 4000 panorama city, CA 91412 now for John MacArthur and the grace to you staff, I'm Phil Johnson reminding you to watch grace to you television with your family this Sunday.

Check your local listings were channeling times and then be here each day next week for another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on grace to you