God & Jesus
Reading John 10:30 in context
“I and my Father are one” is one of the best-known verses about Jesus. Read alone, it can sound like a claim to be God. This topic reads it with the verses around it, including Jesus’s own explanation when he is accused of blasphemy.
1The question
What does Jesus mean by “I and my Father are one”, judged by the passage it sits in?
2What Christians believe
Christians read John 10:30 as a claim to share the Father’s divine nature. They note that the listeners picked up stones and said Jesus, “being a man, makest thyself God” (John 10:33), so they understood him to claim divinity.
Christians also note that the Greek word for “one” here (<em>hen</em>) is neuter, meaning “one thing” rather than “one person”. Early church writers used this verse against those who said the Father and the Son were the same person: one in being, but two persons. Jesus’s use of Psalm 82 is read as an argument from the lesser to the greater: if human judges can be called gods, how much more the Son.
3What the texts say
The verse and the reaction
I and my Father are one.
Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
Jesus answers the charge
Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?
If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;
Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?
I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
The same oneness for the disciples
That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
4What scholars say
D. A. Carson (The Gospel According to John, 1991) notes that the immediate context is about the Father and the Son working together to keep the sheep safe (John 10:28–29), and reads verse 30 first as unity of purpose and action, which he sees as resting on a deeper unity.
Raymond E. Brown (The Gospel According to John I–XII, 1966) also draws attention to the neuter “one” and to Jesus’s answer from Psalm 82, which speaks of human beings called “gods” because the word of God came to them.
Scholars agree that the listeners in the story accused Jesus of making himself God, and that Jesus replied by pointing to Psalm 82 and calling himself “the Son of God”. They disagree on how much the verse claims.
5The Islamic perspective
For Muslims the key is Jesus’s own answer. Accused of claiming to be God, he does not say “Yes, I am God”. He points to a psalm in which human judges are called gods, and says the title he claimed was “Son of God” (John 10:36), a title the Bible gives to many servants of God. The Qur’an warns against going beyond this:
O People of the Scripture! Do not exaggerate in your religion nor utter aught concerning Allah save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a messenger of Allah, and His word which He conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers, and say not "Three" - Cease! (it is) better for you! - Allah is only One Allah. Far is it removed from His Transcendent Majesty that He should have a son. His is all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth. And Allah is sufficient as Defender.
In John 17 Jesus prays that his disciples “may be one, even as we are one”. If the oneness of John 10:30 meant sharing one divine being, the disciples would share it too. Muslims read both verses the same way: one in purpose and obedience to God.
6Objections and responses
“Jesus uses Psalm 82 to argue from the lesser to the greater, so he is claiming more than the judges.”
Response: Even on that reading, the claim he defends is the one he states: “I am the Son of God” (John 10:36). He answers the charge of being God by appealing to a text where humans are called gods, which makes most sense if he is denying the charge, not accepting it.
“Jesus goes on to say ‘the Father is in me, and I in him’ (John 10:38).”
Response: Jesus uses the same language for his disciples: “I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you” (John 14:20). Being “in” one another describes close fellowship with God, not shared divinity.
7Conclusion
Both sides agree that John 10:30 led to a charge of blasphemy, and that Jesus answered it with Psalm 82 and the title “Son of God”. Christians see the verse as a claim to share God’s nature. Muslims see unity of will and purpose, the same unity Jesus prays for his disciples in John 17.
Read John 10:22–39 as one scene, and give Jesus’s own answer in verses 34–36 its full weight.
8Watch and read more
Watch
Video coming soon. [Add your YouTube video link for this topic here.]
Related topics
Sources
- Bible, King James Version:John 10:30John 10:31John 10:33John 10:34John 10:35John 10:36Psalm 82:6John 17:21John 17:22
- Qur’an, translated by M. Pickthall:Qur’an 4:171
- D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (1991)
- Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John I–XII, Anchor Bible (1966)