Is This How "Co-Equals" Address Each Other?

John 17
Jesus said these things, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so that your Son can glorify you, just as you gave him authority over all flesh so that he could give life in the age to come to all those you have given him. And this is life in the age to come, that they know you, the ONLY true God, AND the one you have sent—Jesus Christ. I glorified you on the earth by accomplishing the work that you have given me to do. And now, Father, glorify me together with yourself with the glory that I had with you before the world was.

7) Jesus called God “the only true God.”

Jesus called the Father “the only God” (John 5:44 ESV). The New American Standard Bible goes so far as to translate it as “the one and only God.” The straightforward reading of this verse is that Jesus did not think of himself as God.

Similarly, on the night he was arrested, Jesus prayed to God that people would “know you, the only true God” (John 17:3). It seems disingenuous, or at least confusing, that Jesus would refer to his Father as “the only true God” if he knew that both he and “the Holy Spirit” were also “Persons” in a triune God, and that the Father shared His position as “God” with them. It seems much more likely that Jesus spoke the simple truth when he called his Father “the only true God.”

Furthermore, Jesus called God the “Lord of heaven and earth.” Luke 10:21 says, “In that same hour he [Jesus] was full of joy in the holy spirit, and said, ‘I thank you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, because this was well-pleasing in your sight.’” If the Trinity was true and Jesus was co-equal and co-eternal with the Father, he would not have addressed him as “Lord of heaven and earth.” That is not the way equals address each other. Also, if the Holy Spirit was a third member of the Trinity and thus also “Lord of heaven and earth,” it seems that Jesus would not have left him out of his prayer, which was to the Father.

For full commentary see the REV .