Were the Disciples Also God? Of Course Not!

 

Cody Watters

Scripture teaches that Jesus and His Father are “one” not in numerical identity or essence, but in unity of purpose, will, authority, message, and mission. Jesus does only what the Father wills (John 5:19), speaks only the Father’s words (John 7:16; 12:49), acts with authority given to Him (Matt. 28:18), perfectly represents the Father (John 14:9), shares unity the same way believers are to be “one” (John 17:21-23), and is glorified by the Father who is greater than Him (John 14:28; John 17:22; Phil. 2:9). Jesus and the Father are truly “one” in harmony and purpose (John 10:30), while the Father alone remains “the only true God” and Jesus is the one He sent (John 17:3)

FROM THE REV: “I and the Father are one.” Here in John 10:30, Jesus says that he and the Father are “one” in purpose, and unified in their goals and actions. Jesus and the Father operate in perfect unity, and it should be the goal of every Christian to be “one” with them. This is clearly what Jesus wanted when he prayed, “…that they [Jesus’ followers] may be one as we are one; I in them, and Thou in me, that they may be perfected into one” (John 17:22-23 YLT). When Jesus prayed that his disciples “may be one as we are one,” he did not mean “one in substance,” he meant “one in heart” having unity of purpose.

There is no reason to take John 10:30 to mean what Trinitarian doctrine says it means, that is, that Christ and the Father are of the same “substance” and make up “one God.” To be “one” was a common idiom in the biblical world and it is even still used the same way today when two people say they are “one.” For example, when Paul wrote to the Corinthians about his ministry in Corinth, he said that he had planted the seed and Apollos had watered it. Then he said, “he who plants and he who waters are one” (1 Cor. 3:8 KJV). In the Greek texts, the wording of Paul is the same as that in John 10:30, yet no one claims that Paul and Apollos make up “one being,” or are somehow “of one substance.” Furthermore, the NIV translates 1 Corinthians 3:8 as “he who plants and he who waters have one purpose.” Why translate the same Greek phrase as “are one” in one place, but as “have one purpose” in another place? The reason is the translator’s bias toward the Trinity. But translating the same Greek phrase in two different ways obscures the clear meaning of Christ’s statement in John 10:30: Christ always did the Father’s will; he and God have “one purpose.” The NIV translators would have been exactly correct if they had translated both John 10:30 and 1 Corinthians 3:8 as “have one purpose” instead of only 1 Corinthians 3:8.

Jesus used the concept of “being one” in other places, and from them, one can see that “one purpose” is what he meant. John 11:52 says Jesus was to die to make all God’s children “one.” In John 17:11, 21-23, Jesus prayed to God that his followers would be “one” as he and God were “one.” The meaning is clear: Jesus was praying that all his followers be one in purpose just as he and God were one in purpose, a prayer that has not yet been answered.

Sadly, the Trinitarian bias in reading John 10:30 has kept many people from paying attention to what the Bible is really saying. Jesus was speaking about his ability to keep the “sheep,” the believers, who came to him. He said that no one could take them out of his hand and that no one could take them out of his Father’s hand. Then he said that he and the Father were “one,” i.e., had one purpose, which was to keep and protect the sheep. No wonder Jesus prayed that we believers be “one” like he and his Father. Far too many believers are self-focused and do not pay enough attention to the other believers around them. Cain thought he did not have to be his brother’s keeper, but we should know differently. If we are going to be “one” like God and Jesus are “one,” then we need to work hard to help and bless God’s flock.

There are Trinitarians who agree that John 10:30 is not about Jesus and the Father being one in substance, but one in purpose. For example, the famous theologian John Calvin wrote: “The ancients made a wrong use of this passage to prove that Christ is (homoousios), of the same essence, with the Father. For Christ does not argue about the unity of substance, but about the agreement which he has with the Father, so that whatever is done by Christ will be confirmed by the power of his Father.”