Are God and Jesus the same person?

Could love assure its objects of more? His love would impart to them the certainty of His own deepest joy, His Father's love as sure as His own; and so He closes His communication with it. "My Father Who hath given to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to seize out of the hand of My Father. I and the Father are one." Here we rise into that height of holy love and infinite power of which none could speak but the Son; and He speaks of the secrets of Godhead with the intimate familiarity proper to the Only-begotten Who is in the Father's bosom. He needed none to testify of man, for He knew what was in man, being Himself God; and He knew what was in God for the self-same reason. Heaven or earth made no difference, time or eternity. Not a creature is unapparent before Him, but all things are naked and laid bare in His eyes with Whom we have to do. And He declares that the Father Who had made the gift resists all that can threaten harm, and as He has given to Christ, so He is greater than all, and none can seize out of His hand. Indeed, the Son and the Father are one, not one Person (which ἐσμεν with every other Scripture bearing on it, refutes), but one thing, ἓν, one Divine nature or essence (as other Scriptures equally prove). The lowliest of men, the Shepherd of the sheep, He is the Son of the Father, true God and eternal life. And He and the Father are not more truly one in Divine essence than in the fellowship of Divine love for the sheep.

"We are One," ἕν, neuter. It is not one in will or purpose only, for this in the case of Jesus might still be frustrated, but that will and power coalesce in the person of the Speaker. In these verses the distinction of Persons and unity of Nature alike come out. See, further, John 12:45, John 14:9 f., John 17:21, and cf. Heb. 1:3. The Sabellian and Patripassian (Swedenborgian) theory breaks down when faced with the words: the Father and JESUS are not one "Person", whilst the one nature contradicts Arians (Socinians). The contemporary Jews understood the Lord's statement, whilst their descendants and "Unitarians" miss its meaning.

The disciples could not fail to realise that He was the Son of the Father. Our Lord spoke much of the Father. “I and My Father are One” (John 10:30), He affirmed, He was ever in communion with the Father. The Father was not the Son. The Son was not the Father. Yet, with the Spirit, they are ONE God, one in purpose, counsel, will, knowledge, movement. It is no wonder that one of the disciples, writing for the rest, could say, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

Their Security. — But more. Everlasting life is theirs, Christ's gift to them. And everlasting life, be it well remembered, is everlasting. For "they shall never perish." No latent seed of dissolution is there in that life. Nothing within them can destroy it. Nor can any power from without rob them of it. For none can pluck them out of Christ's hand. Firmly and abidingly does He grasp them. Securely will He keep them, His Father's gift to Him. His Father, too, will keep them. "My Father," He said, "which gave them Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand" (29). The wolf might seize a sheep, when the hireling had fled. The enemy can never seize one sheep of Christ; for He, the Good Shepherd, who has died for them, will safely keep them. He will not forsake them, and no divergence of counsels can there be between the Father and the Son; for He adds, "I and My Father are one" — i.e. not one Person, but one in aim, objects, counsels, etc. The Persons are here distinguished by the Son. Who was so competent to do that? "My Father, which gave them Me," marks the distinction. Yet He and the Father are one, essentially one; for Christ is God as well as man. Of the Lord's person we read in this chapter. And His Divine and human natures are clearly taught. He could die, for He is a man. He could furnish a motive for His Father's love to Him (17), for He is Divine. Yet, whilst the Son is the Son of the Father, who as Father is greater than all, He and the Father are one. A mystery, of course, this is beyond human comprehension, yet is to be firmly held by every true Christian.

"The neuter hen, (one) denotes, according to the connection and for the purpose of the argument, unity of will and power; which rests on the unity of essence or nature: for power is one of the divine attributes, which are not outside of the divine essence, but constitute it. Even if we confine hen to dynamic unity, we have here one of the strongest arguments for the strict divinity of Christ. It is implied even more in esmen (we are) than in hen. No creature could possibly thus associate himself in one common plural with God Almighty without shocking blasphemy or downright madness. In this brief sentence we have, as Augustine and Bengel observe, a refutation both of Arianism and Sabellianism: hen refutes the former by asserting the dynamic (and, by implication, the essential) unity of the Father and the Son. 'I and the Father' and 'we are' refute the latter by asserting the personal distinction. Sabellianism would require the masculine eis, instead of the neuter; and this would be inconsistent with 'We are,' and the self-conscious 'I.'"

"The same was in the beginning with God." Here I find not a quality of God, but some one with God - unity of nature and Being, but distinctness of Person - "He was God," but "He was with God." This Word was made flesh - became a man. But where the unity of the Father and the Son is stated, personal distinction is carefully maintained. "I and my Father are one"; no doubt in the mysterious unity of the Deity they are one, but there are Two who are so. "The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world." He did not send an idea merely. There was a living Person there who said He was sent. Nor was it merely when in this world, that He was sent for He says: "I came forth from the Father, and came into the world; and again I leave the world and go to the Father." "Glorify Thou me with Thine own self, with the glory I had with Thee before the world was." "Lo! I come in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do Thy will, O God." Here we have a Person, an "I" who has an intention, a purpose, and comes to fulfil it. Again "For I came not to do mine own will, but the will of him who sent me." "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not my will but Thine be done." Holiness had not a will which was not to be done, nor love either.

281 All these texts, and a crowd of others that might be quoted and from Christ's own mouth - who, Mr. Sen admits, speaks the truth - proclaim a living, existing One who could say "I," and that before the worlds; not "an idea," but One who existed with God, and who was God, and who was in the Father's glory before the world was - One who could say "I."

The last words of this verse, "My Father is greater than I," have been made into an occasion of stumbling to some. But here we have speaking the Word made flesh, and He speaks in His estate as the lowly Man upon earth. Hence in position or station the Father was greater than He, whilst as to being and nature He and the Father were one.

“My Father!” From the lips of our Lord Jesus Christ those two precious words often fell. Their full meaning we may not yet have grasped, but the Spirit is here to lead us into all truth. It is plainly evident that Jesus must have been speaking as a Man when He said, “MY Father is greater than I” This therefore explains to us how He stood in relation to His Father as “the Son of the Father,” for when He spake of Himself as the Son, one with the Father, He did not then say “My Father,” but speaking as God the Son He told those who listened to His words, “I and THE Father are one” (N.Tr.). There is therefore no contradiction between John 14:28 and 10:30, but each Scripture glows with divine beauty, one revealing Him to us as Man and the other as God, the first in His obedient place as the Son of the Father, the second in His equality as the Son with the Father.

2nd. The Lord's words in Matthew speak of the Father as distinct from the Son, thus telling us of plurality of Persons in the Godhead, a truth indicated in the Old Testament (Gen. 19:24; Isaiah 48:16), and fully revealed in the New, wherein we are taught of their number and relative position to each other; viz., the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (Matt. 28:19). The Son is, and must as Son be, distinct from the Father, as the Lord told the Jews (John 8:16-18), and subsequently stated to His disciples, "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again I leave the world, and go to the Father" (16:28). His departure to the Father ought to have been a cause of rejoicing to them, for "My Father," He said, "is greater than I" (14:28). Yet it is also true that He and the Father are one (10:30).

The blasphemous doctrine of Arius was an offshoot of Gnosticism, perhaps the least offensive in appearance,but directly and inevitably destructive of the personal glory of the Son as God, and hence overthrowing the basis of redemption.

Modern Unitarianism denies the Lord Jesus to be more than man, and thus even His supernatural birth of the Virgin Mary, though Socinus asserted the singular modification of such an exaltation after His resurrection as constituted Him an adequate Object of divine worship. Arius seemed to approach the truth on the side of His pre-existence before He came into the world, owned that He, the Son of God, made the universe, but maintained that He was Himself created, though the very first and highest of creatures.

It was not the Sabellian denial of distinct personality, but the refusal to the Son, and of course to the Spirit, of true, proper, essential, and eternal Deity.