And let's turn together in God's word to John chapter 10, John the 10th chapter, and trace your finger down to verse 30. And if it would please you, I'd like to back to verse 29, only to try to capture the essence of the context which we have been studying before, John chapter 10 verses 29 and following. Jesus here speaking, my father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand, I and the father are one. The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, I have shown you many good works from the father, for which of them are you going to stone me? Jesus answered him, it is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God, Jesus answered them, is it not written in your law? I said you are gods, if he called them gods to whom the word of God came and the Scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom the father consecrated and sinned into the world? You are blaspheming because I said I am the son of God, if I am not doing the works of my father then do not believe me, but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works that you may know and understand that the father is in me and I am in the father. Again, they sought to arrest him, but he escaped their hands. Lord bless the reading of his word and the hearing of his people. I am sure that at some point in your life you have played bingo or a game like that, this interactive, a picked bingo is an illustration because sometimes in the middle of the game I might grow a little bored and then realize that my mind has wandered and when I check back in I am not sure whether some block has been called on my bingo card or not. But I know that if I pay attention and listen then I will put my chip or whatever have you down on each of those blocks on my bingo card. That sounds so odd, doesn't it, to say that for some reason, but it does. On my card I will fill in the blanks on the card. Jesus throughout this gospel of John has been weaving for us a growing theology concerning his person. He has been the purpose and the concern of this apostle all the way through to put forth evidence and to show us reasonably the divinity of Christ, that Jesus Christ is God. That's where we began with the first chapter, John 111 and 114 teach about the word becoming flesh, the word was God and the word was with God. It has been John's purpose to teach that one building block upon another. So we come today to an expansion of that teaching. Now why, how does this relate to bingo? If we have not been paying attention to the apostle as he has been teaching, there might be a block or two that is missing. So as he continues to build one upon the other, it's necessary that we acquire a cumulative understanding and understand his argument as it is laid out over the several chapters we have already studied. We've talked about the word becoming flesh. We've used several of the I.M. statements of Jesus, each of these pointing towards his divinity. Here Jesus makes a profound statement, I and the Father are one. I and the Father are one. Is there any other plane way to put it? They ask Jesus and the verses prior to our study today to tell them plainly if he was the Messiah, if he was the one to come, Jesus here speaks as plainly as one can. I and the Father are one. How important is it that we understand the divinity of Christ? How important is it that we truly understand in depth any of these strands of theology as they are presented by God to his people in his word? Dabney calls this divinity of Christ, this issue of divinity of Christ, the prime article of revealed theology, the prime article of revealed theology of all the other issues in theology we can study, the divinity of Christ being the primary one that we should make sure we have sorted out in our mind. First to understand this answers whether Christ ought to be trusted, whether Christ ought to be worshipped, and whether Christ ought to be obeyed as God. If Christ does not speak as God, should we obey Him as God? A pastor speaks for God to God's people as he preaches faithfully from God's word, but he is not to be confused with God's word itself, but when Christ speaks, it is God speaking to us. The opponents, again, it asks Jesus to speak plainly. This is as clear and ambiguous a statement as Jesus could possibly make. They were implying that because of Jesus's shadowy teaching or his lack of clarity or his cagey wordsmithing, that it was because of Jesus's teaching that they did not believe. They were saying if you just tell us plain, we will believe, so they were accusing Christ of not being plain enough in his teaching for them to believe. The deity of the Son of God was the most controversial areas, not only in Christ's day, but in the history of the early church. The early church only took until the 325 AD, in fact, for the counts of Nicaea to have to come up with a statement against the heresy of Aryanism, and against that heresy they declared these basic truths that Jesus was begotten and not made, that he was of divine nature, the same essence with the Father, and that he was not similar to God, but he was truly God. Not simply like God, but truly God. This was the formulation of the church's understanding of the deity of Christ from the very beginning. Again, it had to be restated in 451 AD at the Council of Calcedon. That council affirmed that Jesus is truly man and truly God. Two natures without mixture, confusion, separation, or division. As we studied the first chapter of John, we read that the word was with God, and the word was God. Here we have the personal distinction between the two persons because Jesus was with God, and we also have the personal inclusion or the unity of the two in essence by saying that the word was God. So John has presented this from the very beginning, that there were two persons in the Father and in the Son distinct, and then also those two had a unity of essence. Jesus is here declaring, I and the Father are one. It's an interesting construction that's used here, and I won't go into a great deal of detail except to say that there is a neuter and not a masculine tense that is used, which means that it's not speaking about the person so much as here is to be taken as the will. I and the Father are one in purpose. Our will is the same, the same, and that's key. He's not saying I hear God's will and I'm happy to obey it, not in this place. He's saying the Father's will and my will are exactly the same. Jesus had taught on our security in the previous passages. He said, the Father gives me the sheep, and no one can snatch them away because no one can snatch away what the Father gives in verse 28. Jesus talks about his own love for the sheep, and in verse 29, Jesus speaks of the Father's love for the sheep. And he says, the Father is greater than all, doesn't he? In the previous verse, my Father who has given them to me is greater than all. It makes a declaration of fact, God the Father is greater than all, and then he says immediately and I and the Father are one. It's unambiguous, and it can't be confused. We understand the doctrine of the Trinity to be taught from the Scriptures, but there is in the doctrine of the Trinity distinctions that we need to make to ensure that there is no confusion in our minds. The first which I won't go into again in any detail today, we have covered it previously. It's what we might call the economic Trinity. That is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are three persons. They are in relationship to one another. The Spirit cannot proceed until Christ had ascended into heaven. He said, the Spirit will not come until I have ascended. And Jesus said, I came not to do my own will, but the Father's will, who sent me. And so there was a distinction in their purposes, there was a distinction, and what they were doing in this economic relationship which they had. The Father, the Son to do the Father's will, and the Spirit to proceed forth from the Father and the Son together for the salvation of His people at Pentecost. And yet, the truth of the function of this economic Trinity depends on what we will call the essential Trinity, that the three are of one essence. And that's what we would want to look at today. In John chapter 1 verse 14, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. The Word became flesh dwelt among us and we have seen His glory. What glory? Glory as of the only Son from the Father. Sharing in the glory of the Father, there is a unity with the Father and that they share of the same glory, verse 18 of chapter 1. No one has ever seen God. The only God who is at the Father's side, He has made Him known. Here Jesus is called God, isn't He? And there's a distinction between the two persons. No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at His side, the Father's side, He has made Him known. So there's a diversity in the persons of the Trinity. The New Testament language does nothing except promote the idea of the deity of Christ. Nowhere do we find the deity of Christ to be discouraged, even John Quincy Adams, who strangely enough was a unitarian, but had the good sense to notice in the Scriptures. No argument that I have ever heard can satisfy my judgment that the doctrine of the divinity of Christ is not countenance to buy the New Testament. So then what would be the trouble? Why can't we simply state that and be finished with it? Because to make Jesus equal with God but not understand that Jesus is of the same essence with God sets up not simply His equality, but a rival. If He is not of the same essence, if He is only equal then we have a God who is a rival to God the Father. He must be of the same essence. He must be of the same essence, hence the term essential Trinity. By essential we are saying that the essence of the sun is the very identical essence with that of the Father. One way the Scriptures teach us is by applying the names of God to Jesus, for example in Psalm 45, 6 and 8. Here speaking of God the Father, your throne O God and hear the word for God is Elohim, a word used exclusively for God. He says, Your throne O God is forever and ever, but we find in Hebrews chapter 1 verses 8 and 9, when it's speaking of Jesus the same words, unites or rather unto the sun, he says, Your throne O God is forever and ever. Exactly the same language used for God the Father is here used for God the Son. A child is born unto us and His name shall be called the mighty God. This briefly by survey not exploring each of the passages, but if you were to compare Isaiah 45, 23 with Romans 14, 10 through 11, you would see there that the judgment seat of God is one in the same as the judgment seat of Christ. If you were to compare Joel 232 with Romans 10, 13, there you would prove that the name Jehovah is also the name of Christ. In Ephesians 4, 8 through 9 Christ where it told gives us the gifts. The same gifts that in Psalm 68, 18 are given by Jehovah God. And as we've studied before, the omission of the article you might recall in John 1-1 shows that Jesus is in essence God and what we mean by that missing article in John 1-1 is that it reads the word was God rather than reading the word was a God or the word was the God rather that the article was gone, meaning that in essence he was God. Verse 33, that Jews understand what even now in the 21st century is hotly debated that Jesus was claiming to be God, that answers their response. The Jews answered him, it's not for a good work that we're going to stone you, but for blasphemy because you being a man make yourself God. They understood clearly being in the presence of Christ what he was intending when he spoke. And we might argue about the language with those who do not believe in the divinity of Christ or those who do not hold to it. We might argue that well in the original context or in the original language and they might try to score a point by bringing forth some sort of a rare or strange linguistic device, but those who were listening to Jesus understood him plainly enough because they were ready to stone him for the capital offense of claiming to be God. Well, what difference does it make? Really? Why should we be so concerned about all of these details of theology because Jesus is mediator between God and man? And as mediator there are certain qualities that he must possess to be able to be mediator between God and man, one of my favorite theologians, William Shed, has listed two significant reasons that we must understand this. A mediator, he says, must be equal of either of the two parties between whom he mediates. He cannot be of only one party. If Jesus was only coming from man, as man, even a perfect man, to mediate between man and God, he would be representing man only. If he was only God taking on flesh but not being a separate person, then he would only be representing himself, which is the same condition that we had prior to a mediator. Man and God were not able to come to reconciliation. There had to be a mediator, but the mediator had to stand on equal ground with both. Hence the incarnation. But the incarnation makes Christ 100% man, 100% God, the council said he's very homo and very dayo. See, he's very God and very man, completely without confusion, without division. Secondly, he has to be a prophet, but he has to be a prophet who can inwardly enlighten and not merely teach by words externally, a prophet who speaks but doesn't just deliver information, but a prophet who speaks and actually moves and changes the heart of those who hear. He is a king who actually can protect his kingdom, not a proxy king in name only. And he's a priest who can make a tome to justice and justice for his people. These functions cannot be discharged by a finite being, only by the divine. Jesus makes a legal case for himself in the verses that follow. He tells them if they don't want to listen to the words, if they don't want to believe what he says, then look at his works. But the Jews wanted to skip over the evidence that was offered. They would rather not consider the implications of the works that he does. They said, oh, we're not going to talk about the works, we're not stoning you for that. We're only stoning you for your claim to be God. We're not going to stoning you for the works. They choose to skip over the works which were the evidence of the work of God in their midst. Even today there's many that will admit to Jesus's life and his work, but they will still refuse to receive him as God, as Lord of life. We hear this referred to as the Lordship controversy. You hear people express it as, oh, such and such a person has received Christ. They believe, but they haven't either received the Holy Spirit yet, or even if they don't want to hold to that, they would say, they believe, but they haven't had the work of Christ beginning them yet. They're still living as a carnal Christian, friends and brothers and sisters. We all sin and there are seasons in our lives where we are less progressive in our growth in Christ than we ought to be, but there is no separate category of an individual who has saved and not really Christian but carnal Christian. That is one who is failing to live in purposeful acknowledgement that Christ is God, the Supreme law giver and king and ruler. If Christ is God, then he is a prophet who speaks to the heart that we would understand. He is the king who is truly ruling, not waiting to rule, but actually ruling his people, and he is the priest who has in fact made mediation between God and man by making sacrifice. The person of Christ is key to solving what's called the Lordship Controversy. If he's only a compassionate shepherd, sacrificial lamb, spokesman and advocate for the views of God, for the people of God, bringing to them a good word that they might be moved to obey, then he can be received but doesn't have to be obeyed in his own person. If he is God, however, then he is the Supreme law giver, he is the judge of all and he must be obeyed. To believe Christ is to immediately obey Christ because belief itself is obedience. We are commanded to believe. Our first act is an act of obedience to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and from that point on it's a life of obedience to the Lord. Not only can his works not be faulted, however, because his works had shown forth through his and we again have gone through these in our study, the miraculous feedings and the healings and the demonstrations of power that he had already shown forth to the people, but he also in his words cannot be faulted. In an interesting legal maneuver, Jesus quotes from Psalm 82, 6, Psalm 82, 5 and 6 read this, they have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said, you are gods, sons of the most high, all of you. Nevertheless, like men, you shall die and fall like any prince. Jesus here uses an interesting legal argument not to negate his own assertion that he is God, but simply to say they have no legal basis to bring capital punishment against him, because he is now quoting from the Scriptures themselves, he's saying that even the Scriptures say these words that you are gods, he's here showing their bias and their darkness, and also the verses in this song which are before also illuminating. They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness. Doesn't this describe what Jesus has just been teaching about the sheep that are without the fold? Isn't this describing those who will not believe? He said to them, you will not believe because you cannot believe, because the Father is not given you to me. The Father is not given it to you to believe, so therefore, having no ears to hear. You are blind and you are deaf and you are dumb. They protested against the charge of blindness, of course, but Jesus pointed to the one he had already made to see to show that it is by his power one is made to see and that they in fact are blind, although they see with the eyes, they do not see him. So not seeing him, their bias bit so against him, they pick up stones to stone him. Jesus also is touching on another verse that we might look at in Exodus chapter 4 verse 22. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is my first born son. And I say to you, let my son go that he may serve me. Israel is called the first born son, and Jesus is here quoting from the Psalms where someone is being called with the little G gods. Here he is speaking about those who have received the law of God. Some and many commentators who might respect believe that here in the psalm, the psalm is to speaking about those judges that would stand to bring judgment upon the people. Standing with the law of God in their hands, they are sitting in a place of judgment. And so the term is given to them with a small G, not the proper name of God, but they are called gods because they are the dispensers of the law among the people. But I believe that it is broader than that, and many more commentators believe as well, that it is all of Israel that is here looked at, the people of God, who have been given the law of God. And as holders of the law of God, they are stewards of God's law. And they are people who are to walk according to God's law distinct from the world, taken from darkness and into light in God's covenant. And so in relation to the world, they are a people who are as gods having the only ones carrying the word of God. Again, not gods in the sense of deity, and that's where our language confuses us. But gods in the sense is they are holders of God's law. Jesus is pointing out that God's was used of mere men because of their function as stewards of God's law on earth. How much more of Him gives the evidence of His works? He's saying, if these were called gods, if these are, then how could you possibly rail accusation when there is so much testimony because of the works that I have done? I have been sent by the Father for this very purpose to herald the kingdom of Christ, and yet you would rail accusation against me when even those in your own midst have been called gods in another time. What about us, the New Israel, the New Jerusalem? Is there anything in this that would relate to us? In Jeremiah 31 and 33, here we find, I think the clearest disclosure of the New Covenant in the Old Testament, I'll put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. We also are given a stewardship as the nation of Israel was. We also are given a stewardship as those who hold the law of God within our hearts. The law was written by the finger of God on tablets of stone and given to Moses to give to the people of God. Now the Holy Spirit has written in the same manner the law of God upon our hearts and our conscience has been changed. And so what's the implication of that? Is it simply a legal function? There is a legal aspect to it, but we also understand that we are brought into unity with God as well, not in the same essence as Christ is, but as His adopted children. John Murray said, union with Christ is the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation. I think perhaps the greatest advocate of this whole idea of our union with Christ and the one who thought that it was neglected the most was Arthur W. Pink, who said, the subject of spiritual union is the most important, the most profound, and yet the most blessed of any that is set forth in the sacred scriptures and yet said to say, there is hardly any which is more generally neglected. Well, I would simply ask you to test yourself at this point, how do you understand your union with Christ? As Jesus describes His own unity with the Father, wouldn't it presuppose that we would also need to understand something of our union with Him? 1 Corinthians 3, 16 and 17, and chapter 6, verse 19, do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy Him. For God's temple is holy and you are that temple. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? John 17, a passage that will explore more thoroughly at a later date. I do not ask for those only Jesus prays in His high priestly prayer, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they may believe that you have sent me. Our union with Christ affects our affections and our volitions, but it doesn't change our substance. We are still human, we are still not divine, but Jesus, having been the only begotten, is in fact divine in His union with the Father. Now, blessed is our state to be in union with Christ by faith. As Christians, we have been united to Christ by the Spirit, so that Paul would eventually say, it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Such a profound statement based upon our unity with Christ and our being in union with Him, like the head to the body, an illustration given to us in Scripture, or like the vine is to the branches and the sap that flows through the vine to the branches to give life. So our union with Christ gives the life blood of Christ to us, that we might live in Him on the basis of this union with Him. Because of our union with Christ, it's His righteousness that is imputed to us and our guilt to Him. Holy Spirit, if you want to think of it as the Scriptures describe it as blocks being set upon Christ, our chief cornerstone, being built into a temple as we, the living bricks, are being stacked one upon another in the creation of this temple, and the Holy Spirit being the cement that holds these together, that is our union in Christ. By adoption we are made sons of God, not equal to the Father, but kept secure by the only begotten Jesus Christ, and our lives should demonstrate in our will the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ. First John 2, 3, and 6, tell us how this looks, and by this we know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commandments. Here we are, stewards of the law of God, faithfully obeying, showing a Christ likeness in our life because we are being transformed by the power of Christ, because of this spiritual union with Christ as He flows in us and through us by the work of the Holy Spirit. Whoever says He abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked. Again, 1 John 3, verse 9, no one born of God makes a practice of sinning for God's seed abides in Him, and He cannot keep on sinning because He has been born of God. The passage that we have studied, what we have seen is that those who do not hear the shepherd's voice are not in union with Him, and will not receive that Christ is in union with the Father. They are standing in opposition to Him, they seek to destroy the one that would bear testimony of the grace of God and the salvation of sinners. They would not examine His works, they would not examine His words objectively, even in a human sense. They seek to simply skip over all of that and condemn the one righteous man who would bring to them a word from God. We must also reflect that righteousness of God to His people, our union with Christ brings us into a position where we also, like a city set upon a hill or like salt and light must show forth Christ who dwells within us to the world. At night, the full moon reflects the light of the sun, almost enough to wear the illumination is so bright that you can carry on in your yard or you can walk about without fear of tripping. As the earth moves in between, as the world moves between the moon and the sun, it begins to block out, it goes to a quarter moon or a crescent moon. Until eventually, from now and again, there is even an eclipse where the light of the moon is completely blotted out or maybe a new moon where there is no light at all. Zero illumination often the world does the same with us. We, like the moon, are simply reflecting Christ to the world. And He, being like the sun in this case, shines forth that that righteousness and that gospel would reflect from us into His world. But the world itself will often come between us and our Lord and will blot out so that we no longer reflect that which is true and that which is just. We reflect the light of the gospel. We're not the source, but we reflect that light in our lives. This is our stewardship and this is the result of our unity and our unity is only true because of the basis of Christ being divine with the Father. Three persons, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, one in essence, one in will. Why are we secure in the hand of Christ? Because God will not release us and it is not Christ's duty to hold us because God said so. The Father's will to keep His children is also Christ's will to keep His children. And the same grip that God would place upon us, Christ places upon us and no one can take us from the hand of Christ. I look forward to exploring our unity in Christ as we do come finally to these chapters in John 17. We'll reserve that for a deeper study at that time, but do know this. As a believer, you do not stand alone. And the Holy Spirit is not just simply something for you to tap into or to discuss or to wish for. But it is, in fact, the Spirit of Christ that dwells in you richly to will and to do His will and the will of the Father. For He represents to us and He is, in fact, the perfect will of God, such as the nature of Christ and such as our calling in Him.