John 10:37Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

At first, so that His word might be received, He spoke with a certain condescension. But at last He rose higher and said: "If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe Me, believe My works" (vv. 37-38).

Do you see how He proves what I said above, namely that He is in no way less than the Father, but equal in all things? Since it was impossible to see His essence, He presents the equality and identity of works as proof of the equality of His power.

Although We are distinguished by Persons, the Persons are inseparable and undivided. The Father and the Son abide in one another without confusion. Among us, a father exists separately from his son, although they are one by nature.

But in the divine Persons it is not as among us. They abide in one another without confusion. Therefore of us it is said, "three men," because we are separate persons and do not properly constitute one. But of the Holy Trinity it is said, "one" God, not three, because the Persons co-abide with one another without confusion.

Add to this the identity of will and desire.

So also among us, the essence of our father is known in the one begotten of him. Again, in the begetter the essence of the one begotten is disclosed.

This is because there is one definition of nature for all, and all are one by nature.

But since we are separated by bodies, the many are no longer one. This cannot be said of God by nature, for the Divine is bodiless.

Yet we conceive the Holy Trinity in distinct existences, or hypostases, ἐν ἰδιαζούσαις ὑπάϱξεσι.

Thus the Father is Father and not Son. The Son, again, is Son and not Father. And the Spirit is distinctly the Holy Spirit.

Yet They are not in separation, ἐν διαστάσει, because of Their communion and unity with one another.

The Holy Trinity is known in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. By names They are distinguished from one another numerically, but without division into parts.

In each, each is wholly known, for God is indivisible and not spatial, while possessing distinct and hypostatic being.

Since there is one Godhead in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we say that the Father is seen in the Son, and the Son in the Father.

It is also necessary to know the following.

The Son does not say in the Gospel, "I am in the Father and the Father in Me" (Jn 14:10), and "I and the Father are one" (Jn 10:30), merely because He has the same will, βούλεσϑαι ταὐτά, and one purpose with the Father.

Rather, He says this because, being the true offspring of the Father's essence, He manifests the Father in Himself, just as He Himself is manifested in the Father.

If He says that He wills, speaks, and acts the same as the Father, and easily accomplishes what the Father wills and does, this is so that He may be shown in all things consubstantial with Him.

He is the true fruit of His essence, not one who has only a relative unity with Him in similar wishes and laws of love. We affirm that such unity belongs also to creatures.

Moreover, the Son in the Father and the Father in the Son are understood in this way.

The Son did not pass like creatures from nonbeing into being, nor did He receive existence from somewhere outside. Rather, He came forth from the essence of the Father, as radiance from light or as a river from a source.

Therefore those who behold the Son can see the essence of the Father and understand from Him the property of the Begetter.

Since the whole being of the Son comes from the essence of the Father, He is in the Father. Conversely, the Father is in the Son.

For what He is by nature, this also is the Word that has come forth from Him.

He is revealed and exists in the Son, as the source that sends forth a river is in the river.

The property of the Father's essence is set in the Son, and the form, so to speak, of the Godhead shows Him again in Him.

One must bear in mind that the Savior did not speak these words in vain or by chance.

Wishing to show the identity of His nature with the Begetter, He said, "I and the Father are one."

Yet someone might suppose that Father and Son are divided into a pair only by names, but are not such hypostatically.

Therefore, judging it necessary to interpret these words and present them more clearly to His hearers, He adds, "I am in the Father and the Father in Me."

By the manifestation of This One in That One, and That One in This One, He indicates the identity of the Godhead and the unity of essence.

Because One is in the Other, no single numerically one being is meant, now called Father, now Son.

Rather, He shows most clearly that the Father truly exists distinctly and hypostatically, and that the Son exists distinctly.

For the Father and the Son are one by nature, but two in number.

Yet one is by no means divided into two parts, so that They remain without participation in one another by communion and relation.

Nor is one and the same called by two names, so that the meaning of duality would be limited to a name alone.

We by no means call one and the same now Father and now Son. This is the teaching of Sabellius.

Rather, They are two in number. The Father is always Father and never changes into the Son. Likewise the Son is always Son and never passes over into the Father.

If this is so, then even with duality of number, one nature remains in Both, and one and the same will and Godhead.

For the offspring always has a natural likeness to the one who begets.

The Son is the image, radiance, and reflection of the Father's essence.

Thus we affirm that God is one because of the identity of the Father's nature with the Son, and of the Son's nature with the Father.

No one will call the light and radiance sent from the sun another light by nature, different from the sun, or one that becomes such from it by some participation or relation.

Rather, it truly proceeds from it by nature. These two lights are two only in thought, but are one by nature.

So also, if the Father and the Son are numerically distinguished as two, there will be no reason to call the Son something other than the Father with respect to the Godhead and identity of essence.

As the sun is in the radiance that proceeds from it, and the radiance is in the sun from which it proceeded, so the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father.

They are numerically distinguished as two and are such hypostatically, while by identity of nature They are united in one Godhead.

He says this also against the Arians, and to show that it is not like what was said to the disciples.

For when the Lord said to them, "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love" (Jn 15:10), He explains that the one who fulfills His commandments will abide in Christ's love.

This does not raise the disciples to consubstantiality with the Son.

They could have found themselves outside His love if they no longer wished to fulfill His commandments.

The Son, however, unchangeably does what is pleasing to the Father as God by nature, although He says this as man for our benefit, that we may imitate Him as far as possible.

Therefore we discern "to will" or "not to will" not in essences or in the concept of nature, but in deliberate choice, προαίρεσις.

Such choice belonged to the disciples, but not to the Son.

For we discern that the Son is consubstantial with the Father from the natural goods that are in Him, not from what comes to be or is absent in us.

On verses 37-38.

That those who by nature stand apart from mutual kinship also have different activity, the Savior shows most clearly by what He said.

"For if, looking at the poverty of the flesh," He says, "you do not believe in Me, yet the greatness of My works is exceedingly weighty and sufficient to persuade you that I am God, from God."

For how will He who is equal to the Father in works be second after Him in nature?

How can He who is clothed with one and the same power and energy as He is become alien in nature from Him?

More than this, how can He fail to be like Him in every respect, and so be well disposed toward essential likeness with the Father?

He has in Himself by nature the whole distinctiveness of Him who begot Him, so that He abides in the Father and likewise has the Father in Himself.

Who, then, by daring to call the Image of the Father a creature, will not thereby blaspheme the Father Himself?

The Son says, "The Father is in Me and I in Him," not as men can say this about themselves. For if we think well, we abide in God. If we live well, God abides in us.

We, the faithful, participants in His grace and enlightened by Him, abide in Him, and He in us. But it is not so with the Only-begotten Son. He is in the Father and the Father in Him, as an equal in Him to whom He is equal.

Finally, we may sometimes say, "We abide in God and God in us." But can we say, "I and God are one"? You are in God because God shares Himself with you. God is in you because you have become the temple of God.

Yet because you are in God and God is in you, you can never say, "He who has seen me has seen the Father," as the Only-begotten said: "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9). Nor can you say, "I and the Father are one" (cf. Jn 10:30).

Acknowledge the prerogative of the Lord and the mercy granted to the servant. The prerogative of the Lord is equality with the Father. The mercy granted to the servant is participation in the Savior.

Therefore, whoever knows the Son knows the Father. Whoever has known the Father has also known the Son. Or, to put it another way, the Son abides in the Father as the beauty of an image abides in its archetype. The Father abides in the Son as the beauty of the archetype abides in the image. And we call the Son the image of the Father, not in a simple and ordinary sense, but as in all things like Him.

The Old Testament citation brought forward by Jesus Christ for proof is found in Ps 81:6. There judges are called gods. In other places of the Old Testament, judges and other men chosen by God are also called gods (cf. Ex 4:16; 7:1; 21:6; 22:8, 28; Zech 12:8).

In the Old Testament, judges, kings, and prophets are called gods on this ground: in the theocratic order of the Hebrew people, God Himself was judge and king. He chose men as His instruments for revealing His will to other men (cf. Ex 18:15; Deut 1:17; 19:17).

Consequently, judges, kings, and prophets were called gods and sons of the Most High insofar as God's authority and power acted and were revealed in them. They were so called insofar as they revealed God's will to men.

Thus there is a certain resemblance between them and Christ. In Him also God is revealed to the world. Yet Christ not only has communion with God, but is one with Him in essence.

The meaning of the proof, then, is this: if ordinary men were called gods and sons of the Most High because the word of God came to them, and if Scripture. Being inspired by God, undoubtedly speaks truth in this case, does not He whom God sent from heaven to earth have the right to call Himself the Son of God?

If they were called gods insofar as they were in communion with God, then I have still more right to be called the Son of God, for I am one with God. If they were chosen and sanctified for sacred ministry, then I am the sanctified One.

I am chosen from among these sanctified and chosen ones. I am sanctified and chosen above all, for the Godhead is united to My humanity. The proofs of My unity with the Father have been given to you in My teaching and works.

If you do not believe the former, then in any case you must believe the latter (cf. Jn 5:31, 36): that the Father is in Me and I in Him, and that I and the Father are one.

Believe, the Lord says, at least in what your eyes see. Ask your human reason: who can perform great miracles, the works of God, if he is not from God? Once you believe that I do the works of God, even by human reasoning you will come to the conviction "that the Father is in Me, and I in Him."

But their spiritual eyes were blinded, and they did not wish to see. True and higher faith, when it flames up in the heart, does not require signs and miracles.

John the Baptist in the wilderness, when the Lord asked baptism from him, had not yet seen the great signs that occurred at the baptism. Yet from the first glance he recognized Him with his heart, saying to Him: "I need to be baptized by Thee, and dost Thou come to me?" (Mt 3:14).

Likewise his disciples Andrew and John followed the Lord, drawn by the heart, before seeing signs or miracles (Jn 1:35-40). Likewise faith flamed up in the hearts of Simon Peter and Philip, without requiring signs or miracles (Jn 1:42, 44-45). Let us also remember the centurion, who believed before the sign (Mt 8:8-10).

The Pharisees, however, insistently demand signs and miracles (Mt 12:38; 16 and elsewhere). Yet when they see them, they remain in their unbelief.

There was one case, mentioned by the evangelist John (Jn 4:48-53), in which the nobleman who asked for the healing of his son believed in the Lord after seeing and understanding the miracle that occurred. He was a Jew, raised in all their prejudices.

He attained faith by the very path that the Lord now indicates to the Jews, saying: "Even though you do not believe Me, believe My works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me and I in Him."

In essence, the Lord sets before them a dilemma of human logic, because they are unable to soar to the Lord with the soul on the wings of the higher, spiritual reason, which is faith.

The Lord says to them: you cannot deny the miracles and signs you have seen. But if you have seen them, you must acknowledge that I act by the Spirit of God (Mt 12:28).

If you acknowledge this, then you cannot deny that "I and the Father are one" (Jn 10:30), that "the Father is in Me and I in Him," and that "the kingdom of God has surely come upon you" (Mt 12:28).

But this is precisely what the Pharisees, scribes, and the party of the high priest did not wish to admit. Most of all, they feared that "the kingdom of God had come upon them," the kingdom of righteousness and light that had come to destroy their works of darkness and deceit.

There was no place for them in the kingdom of righteousness. "His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God" (Jn 1:11-12).