The Knowledge of Jesus and the Father John 14:6-11
In our last study we concluded with Jesus’ triple claim of exclusivity in John 14:6: Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” Jesus is the only way to God the Father, the very personification of Truth, and the center and giver of Life. The only way that these things could be true is if Jesus is indeed the Word Incarnate of God.
Jesus is the final revelation of the Father. Later the writer of Hebrews 1:1-3 states: “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; 3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”
Whether the Jews of Jesus’ day or people today really know God through any revelation, including the Old Testament, all is tested against the revelation of God to us in Jesus Christ.
These words of Jesus, “I am the way, the truth and the life,” make it clear that all other religions are ineffective to bring people to the One True God. Jesus alone is The Way.
Knowing Jesus is Knowing the Father
Today we continue in verses 7-9: "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him." 8 Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us." 9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?”
Oh, the holy, patient frustration the Lord Jesus must have felt. The disciples had been Jesus’ constant companions for 3 and a half years, witnessed His greatest teachings, signs, miracles and His flawless life but still they did not fully or completely trust Jesus as God Incarnate. They failed to comprehend that God had made Himself known in the Person of Jesus. Philip, as well as the other disciples, still desired more proof from Jesus, maybe a vision of God, or perhaps a theophany like their fathers saw in Old Testament times.
You have to realize that this isn’t the first time Jesus has spoken concerning His deity and association and relationship with the Father. In John 10:30, Jesus asserted: “I and My Father are one”. In saying this, Jesus claimed to be one with God in the sense of being equal to Him in essence and power. Jesus also claimed preexistence in the Father’s presence (John 10:36) and asserted that He had existed before Abraham in John 8:58, saying; “Before Abraham was, I AM”).
Another Self-Revelation: mutual interpenetration of the Father and the Son
So Jesus once again provides a self-revelation to His disciples in verse 10: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. 11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.”
Theologians refer to these verses as Jesus’ direct statement of the mutual interpenetration of the Father and the Son. He made similar statements, one being back in John 10:30 when Jesus said, “I and My Father are One.” At that time the Jews understood that Jesus had expressed His deity. (We have only to look at their reaction in John 10:31-“Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him.”)
The simplest explanation to the mutual interpenetration or mutual co-inherence is that there is a mutual indwelling of the Father and Son in at least two aspects: In essence as well as in relationship, and this is proven or tested in the undeniable works of Jesus. The challenge in John’s Gospel is the difficulty for human beings to comprehend Jesus’ dual nature while on earth, being human and divine. Jesus’ nature is complex: His human nature is subordinate to the Father and His divine nature is subordinate to the Father while at the same time essentially equal to the Father.
While Jesus is on in essential unity with the Father, He is also at the same time subordinate relationally with the Father since the works and words of Jesus are given to Him by the Father and not the other way around. (John 8:28, 12:49) Jesus will shortly promise the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Triune God, so that without the doctrine of the Trinity, the New Testament would be unintelligible; we understand the Trinity from the teaching of the New Testament yet because of our finite-ness (we are mere creatures who are confined and limited to space and time,) our understanding is limited.
I want to give you three points that may help in understanding God in three persons and the interpenetration of the Trinity. First, God is spirit, not matter. His nature is spirit and He is infinite with relation to time and space: He has always been and always will be. This includes God’s immensity or transcendence and God’s immanence or omnipresence. God is EXTRA-dimensional compared to our finite existence.
Second, God is personal. He relates to Himself and others. His name, which represents his essential character and being, is to be respected and revered. God is self-determinable as is exemplified in Ps. 115:3: “But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases.” He speaks and is addressed in personal terms and has psychological characteristics of personality, but of course He is perfect in every way, not broken like sinful creatures.
Third, God is social. The most significant aspect of His social being is that GOD IS LOVE. (1 John 4:8,16). The God of Scripture is a social being and the Trinity is a “society” or relationship of three persons with a perfect eternal love which binds each to the other continually and infinitely. They are bound together so perfectly that they are actually one in mind, thought, will, purpose, goal, value etc. Each member of the Trinity loves Himself through the others loving Him. All three members of the Trinity interpenetrate one another so that all three are involved in all the words and works of God in some degree. (We can see that from Scripture in Creation and in Salvation: The Father, Son and Spirit at work to create and to save those God has chosen.)
God is one in essence (John 10:30: “I and My Father are one.") yet there are distinctions within the being of God. (John 14:28: “If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, 'I am going to the Father,' for My Father is greater than I.”) Both the Father and the Son as well as the Spirit have a distinctiveness and uniqueness. The Father is distinct from the Son, but the Son is only the Son because He is distinct from the Father. The Spirit is the Spirit in that He is distinct from the Father and the Son. The Trinity is a compound unity which Deuteronomy 6:4 indicates: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!”
Later in John and other places in the NT when the names for the Holy Spirit are revealed, we see the mutual interpenetration yet separation. Jesus prays to the Father to send “another Comforter” (John 14:16) (another of the same kind 1 John 2:1), who is called the Spirit of Truth (John 14:17, 15:26, 16:13) who indwells believers and proceeds from the Father. This Holy Spirit is also the “Spirit of God (Rom. 8:9,14, Eph. 4:30, 1 John 4:2) yet He is the Spirit of the Lord (Jesus) (Acts 8:39, 2Cor. 3:17,18), the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9,1 Peter 1:11), the Spirit of His Son (Gal. 4:6), Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil1:19) and One Spirit (Eph4:4).
“Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. 11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.” As a man, Jesus is utterly dependent on God. He stands in perfect submission to His Father, doing ONLY the Father’s will and saying ONLY that which the Father would have Him speak, and simultaneously Jesus stands in perfect authority over men. He stands as God in the flesh, God Incarnate so that he can be perceived, touched and heard by other human beings.
The disciples and all believers need to believe that Jesus is more than a messenger from God. A messenger would not refer to God as Father. They need to see and accept Jesus as indwelling the very reality of deity as God the Son. If they are having trouble accepting that Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in Jesus, the miracles which Jesus did as signs should draw them past the spectacular nature of the miracles to Jesus and then to God Himself.
Remember how enamored the crowds were with the signs but they did not come to see that the miracles had a purpose? They pointed to a greater spiritual truth. In the case of the miracles, they were astounding for sure, but the miracles of Jesus undoubtedly should cause one to conclude that that it is God who is working in Jesus, and coupled with the testimony of Jesus, and that He and the Father have a very unusual relationship, and that what He says about Himself and the Father is true, and what Jesus says about Himself is true. There could not be any other conclusion.
This is a difficult teaching by Jesus. Look at what Jesus said: “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.” Notice that Jesus doesn’t expect us to understand but to BELIEVE. WE are to trust Jesus for who He says He is, and to trust what He has done for us. Believing saving faith does not understand everything God says but accepts what He says as truth.
6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. 7 "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him." 11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.”
We can fully accept who Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in Jesus, not only because His works demonstrate that truth, but because Jesus IS the Truth, and He testifies that truth and reality concerning His Person.
Notes:
The mutual interpenetration or mutual co-inherence of Father and Son
A. God is spirit, not matter: God is EXTRA-dimensional compared to our finite existence.
B. God is personal: He relates to Himself and others.
C. God is social: GOD IS LOVE.
1. The God of Scripture is a social being and the Trinity is a “society” or relationship of three persons with a perfect eternal love which binds each to the other continually and infinitely.
2. Each member of the Trinity loves Himself through the others loving Him.
3. The Trinity is a compound unity-Deut. 6:4: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!”
