John 14:10Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

His words mean this: the Father would do them in no other way than as I do them.

Elsewhere He truly presents both Himself and the Father as acting, saying, "My Father is working until now, and I am working" (Jn 5:17).

There He shows the absence of difference, and here the identity of the works.

If His words at first glance seem humble, do not marvel at this. He first said, "Do you not believe?" and only then uttered those words.

He showed that He framed His speech in this way in order to bring Philip to faith. For He penetrated the hearts of the disciples.

Yet the meaning of My words, He says, brings you at last to consent to this, even against your will. Therefore, what I say is assuredly also the words of the Father. What I do, the Father also does.

Christ says this not as though He used another's words. Nor does He transmit heavenly voices proceeding from the Father in the rank and measure of a prophet. For the prophets did not speak their own words, but God gave and inspired them.

He also ascribes the working of miracles to His Father. He does not do this as one who works wonders by a power imparted from without.

He is not like those who said, for example: Do not think concerning us that "by our own power or piety" we have healed this man, that is, the sick man (Acts 3:12).

For it belongs to the saints to use, in miracles, not their own power, but God's. They prove to be ministers and servants both of divine words and of divine works.

But since the Son is consubstantial with the Father, He differs from Him in no way and has nothing other in comparison with Him. Therefore His own words, He says, are the words of the Father.

Thus the Father could not use words other than those which the Son also uses. Understand the greatness of His works in exactly the same way.

Since the Father can do nothing and does nothing other than what the Son can do and does, He says that these are His works.

You may understand His words more clearly in this way: I am in all things wholly like the Father and the image of His essence. I am adorned not merely with outward likeness and external glory.

Rather, because of identity of essence, I have in Myself the whole Begetter.

"The words that I speak I do not speak of Myself, but the Father Who dwells in Me, He does the works."

If the Father, He says, were to address us in speech, He would use the very same words that I now use, and no others.

For I have such essential likeness with Him that My sayings are His. Whatever I do is counted as His works.

"Dwelling in Me," because of identity of essence, "He Himself does the works."

Since the Godhead has one essence, contemplated in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, every word from the Father is through the Son in the Spirit.

So also every work or miracle is through the Son in the Spirit, yet it is accomplished as from the Father.

The Son is not outside the essence of Him Who begot Him, nor is the Holy Spirit. The Only-begotten is in Him and likewise has in Himself the One Who begot Him.

He Himself acts, He says, for the nature of the Father is active and shines beautifully in the Son.

To this one may add another thought, for which the divine economy with the flesh gives a good occasion.

"I do not speak from Myself," He says. This means: not separately, and not contrary to the will of God the Father.

Since He appeared as one beheld in human form, He ascribes His words to the nature of the Godhead, as in the person of the Father. He does the same with His works.

It is as though He says: Let this human appearance of Mine not take away the fitting and proper understanding of Me.

Do not count My words as the words of a mere man like yourselves. Count them as truly divine, and as fitting for the Father Himself as they are for Me.

He acts while "dwelling in Me," for I am in Him and He is in Me.

Therefore, do not think, He says, that something great and surpassing was given to those of old, namely, to see God as if in the form of fire and to hear the voice speaking to them.

For through Me and in Me you truly behold the Father, although I have appeared like you. I have come manifestly, according to the word of the Psalmist (Ps 49:3).

Know that, having heard My words, you have heard words proceeding from the Father. You have also become spectators of His works and of the power proper to Him.

This is because He speaks through Me, as through His Word. He likewise accomplishes and performs wondrous works through Me, again as through His Power.

I consider it beyond doubt that no one, unless damaged in mind, will ever cut off from the essence of the Father His Word and Power.

Rather, everyone will agree that they exist in it and belong to it by nature.

For the Father is not God from another, while the Son is God, though equal to the Father, from God the Father. Therefore the Father is God, but not from God, and Light, but not from Light. The Son is God from God and Light from Light.

Indeed, from these two sayings, taken separately, different heretics oppose us. They wander from the path of truth, not turning aside in one direction, but in opposite directions.

Thus the Arians say, “See, the Son is not equal to the Father, for He does not speak on His own authority.” By contrast, the Sabellians, that is, the Patripassians, say, “See, He who is the Father is also the Son.”

For what is meant by “The Father who dwells in Me does the works,” if not this: “I, who do the works, dwell in Myself”? You assert opposite errors. It is not that one of the two assertions opposes falsehood.

Rather, both assertions, opposed to one another, are false. Wandering in different directions, you have left the path that lies in the middle. You are much farther from one another than from the path you have abandoned.

Come here, you from one side and you from the other. Do not cross over to each other. Let each of you come to us from his own side, and meet here.

Sabellians, acknowledge Him whom you disregard. Arians, find the equality of Him whom you subordinate, and you will walk the right path together with us.

For there is something between you that each ought to receive from the other. Listen, Sabellian: the Son is so far not the Father, but another Person, that the Arian even acknowledges His inequality to the Father.

Listen, Arian: the Son is so equal to the Father that the Sabellian even claims that He is the same as the Father. You add the Person you deny, and you restore full dignity to Him whom you diminish.

Then both of you will stand with us. For you, Sabellian, will not deny Him, and you, Arian, will not diminish Him. He is distinct from the Father, in which you, Arian, refuted the Sabellian.

He is equal to the Father, in which you, Sabellian, refuted the Arian. For to both He cries out: “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30).

When He says “one,” let the Arians hear. When He says “are,” let the Sabellians hear. In the Latin phrase cited by blessed Augustine, the verb is sumus, meaning “we are.”

Thus the verb “are” in the Gospel saying shows that one person is not being spoken of. Let them abandon vain attempts at denial: the one denying equality, the other denying distinction.

Therefore, if from His words, “The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority,” He seems so unequal to the Father in power that He does not do what He Himself wills, then listen to what He said.

“As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He wills” (Jn 5:21).

Likewise, if from His words, “The Father who dwells in Me does the works,” it begins to seem that the Father is not one person and the Son another, then listen to what He said.

“Whatever the Father does, the Son also does in like manner” (cf. Jn 5:19). Then one can understand that He does not speak twice of one person, but of two persons as one God.

But since One is so equal to the Other that One is from the Other, He does not speak on His own authority, because He does not have being from Himself.

And therefore the Father, dwelling in Him, Himself does the works, because He through whom and with whom He works has being from Him.

Finally, He adds and says, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me? But if not, believe Me for the works themselves” (cf. Jn 14:11).

They fall into this through their evil-mindedness. They think that God is a body, and they do not understand what the true Father and the true Son are. They do not understand the invisible and eternal Light, nor His invisible Radiance. They do not understand the invisible Hypostasis, the bodiless impress, χαρακτὴρ, ὰσώματος, and the bodiless Image.

If they knew this, they would not mock and blaspheme the Lord of glory. They would not understand bodiless things bodily, nor distort what was spoken in a good sense. On hearing this, it would be enough to know what the Lord says and to believe. Faith in simplicity is better than excessive disputation.

But since they have resolved to revile even this in order to confirm their heresy, it is necessary to expose their evil-mindedness. For the protection of the faithful, the true meaning must be shown. The words, “I am in the Father, and the Father in Me,” do not mean what the heretics suppose.

They do not mean that They pass into one another, like empty vessels filled by each other. They do not mean that the Son fills an emptiness in the Father, and the Father fills an emptiness in the Son, while each is neither full nor perfect. Such a notion belongs to bodies. Even to say this is altogether impious.

The Father is full and perfect, and the Son is the fullness of the Godhead. Again, God is not in the Son as He is in the saints, giving them strength. The Son is the Father’s Power and Wisdom. Created beings are sanctified by the Spirit through communion with the Son. But the Son is not Son by participation. He is the Father’s own offspring.

Again, the Son is not in the Father in the sense in which we “live and move and have our being” in Him. The Son is life flowing from the Father as from a fountain, by which all things are made alive and exist. Life does not live by another life. Otherwise it would not be life. Rather, the Son Himself brings all things forth into life.

2. Let us see what Asterius, the defender of the heresy and the sophist, says. In rivalry with the Jews, he has written the following: “It is clear that He named Himself as being in the Father, and likewise the Father in Himself, thereby indicating that the word taught by Him is not His, but the Father’s, and that the works are not His own, but belong to the Father, who gave Him power.”

If a mere child had said this, his age would excuse him. But the writer is the so-called sophist, who declares of himself that he knows everything. What condemnation does he deserve? Does he not show himself alien to the Apostle, exalting himself with “persuasive words of wisdom” (1 Cor 2:4)? He thinks he can deceive by them, while he himself does not understand what he says or what he argues about.

What the Son named as proper and fitting to the Son alone, as Word, Wisdom, and Image of the Father’s essence, Asterius applies to all creatures. He makes it common both to the Son and to creatures. This lawless man speaks of the Father’s Power as though it receives power into itself. According to his impiety, he could consistently say that the Son was adopted as a son in a son, and that the Word received the authority of a word.

He still refuses to agree that this was spoken by the Son as Son. Instead, he places Him among all created beings, as though He had learned this. If the Savior said, “I am in the Father, and the Father in Me,” not because the words He uttered are the Son’s words, but because they are the Father’s words and works, then David also says, “I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me” (Ps 84:9). Solomon says, “My words have been spoken by God” (Prov 31:1).

Moses, too, was a minister of the words spoken by God. Each prophet spoke not from himself, but from God: “Thus says the Lord” (Zech 1:3). The saints did not call the works they performed their own, but ascribed them to God, who gave the power.

Thus Elijah and Elisha called upon God to raise the dead. After cleansing Naaman from leprosy, Elisha says to him, “May you know that there is a God in Israel.” Samuel himself, in the days of harvest, prayed to God that He would give rain. The apostles said that they worked signs not by their own power, but by the grace of the Lord.

From this it would follow that this saying could be common to all. Each one, like the Savior, could say, “I am in the Father, and the Father in Me.” Then He alone would no longer be the Son of God, the Word and Wisdom, but would only be numbered among many.

3. But if the Lord had spoken in this sense, He should not have said, “I am in the Father, and the Father in Me.” Rather, He should have said, “I too am in the Father. And the Father is also in Me.” This would show not His own and exclusive relation to the Father as Son, but a grace common to Him with all.

Yet He did not speak as the heretics think. Since they do not acknowledge that He is the genuine Son from the Father, they slander the genuine Son. To Him alone it belongs to say of Himself: “I am in the Father, and the Father in Me.”

The Son is in the Father, so far as this can be grasped, because the Son’s entire being properly belongs to the Father’s essence. The Son is from the Father, as radiance from light and as a stream from a fountain. Therefore, whoever sees the Son sees and contemplates what properly belongs to the Father. Thus the Son’s being, since it is from the Father, is also in the Father.

And the Father is in the Son. For what is properly from the Father is the Son. He is in the Son as the sun is in its radiance, as the mind is in its word, and as the fountain is in the stream. Thus whoever sees the Son sees and contemplates what properly belongs to the Father’s essence, because the Father is in the Son.

Since the Son’s being is the Father’s Image and the Father’s Godhead, it follows that the Son is in the Father, and the Father in the Son. Therefore the Savior rightly first said, “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30), and then added, “I am in the Father, and the Father in Me,” to show the identity of the Godhead and the unity of essence.

Here He says that the Father does the works that I do. Both there and here He expressed one and the same thought: God the Father and God the Son have one and the same power and will.

Thus the Father speaks through the Son as through His Word, and works through the Son as through His power.

The words "who abides in Me" mean the same as "inseparable from Me," or "imaged in Me."

If this authority belongs at the same time to the Father and to the Son, then it is beyond doubt that the Father and the Son are one. The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father.

The most perfect Hebrew could never say that whoever had seen him had seen God Jehovah.

The Lord then points Philip to two features in which he can and must recognize the Father in Him.

First, the teaching of Christ is the teaching of God the Father. Second, the works performed by Christ are the works of God the Father through Him.

"The words that I speak": this refers not only to the words that the Lord was then speaking to them, but to the Lord's whole teaching in general.

"I do not speak from Myself," but I utter the teaching of the Father.

"The Father who abides in Me": not only by action, but by essence. Otherwise the words "who abides in Me" would have no meaning, since every man sent by God performs extraordinary works by the power and action of God.

"Does the works": that is, extraordinary works, and especially miracles, as is clear from what follows.

The force of this indication given by the Lord to Philip is evident. The denial, "My teaching is not merely My human teaching," presupposes the affirmation, "My teaching is the teaching of God My Father."

It corresponds to the saying, "I am in the Father." The affirmation, "The Father who abides in Me does extraordinary works through Me," presupposes the denial, "I do not do extraordinary works merely by Myself as man."

It corresponds to the saying, "The Father is in Me."

But if reason demands a rational explanation of the truths of faith, then instruction is given to reason also. Christ Jesus points it to His teaching and works.

The teaching of Christ Jesus is so pure, so holy, and so lofty that it itself speaks of its origin from heaven. The works that Christ Jesus did could not be works of human power. They were the works of the Almighty.

"But if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe My works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father" (Jn 10:38).

So the Savior says more than once (Jn 5:36). And concerning His teaching He instructed: "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the teaching, whether it is from God, or whether I speak from Myself" (Jn 7:17).

Thus, if the miracles of Moses and the Prophets showed their nearness to God, then the miracles and teaching of Jesus Christ showed His nearness to the heavenly Father.

It was a nearness that Moses and the Prophets did not possess.

"Do you not believe?" Can doubt now be taking hold of you? So the Lord speaks, supporting the wavering weakness of human nature.

For Philip and for all the disciples the Lord repeats the words He had spoken aloud to the Jews: "The Father is in Me, and I in Him" (Jn 10:38).

He also reminds the disciples of what He had declared: "No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him" (Mt 11:27).

In Matthew's Gospel these last words are followed by a moving call: "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Mt 11:28).

In the whole of these sacred words we perceive that, even in the discourse addressed to Philip and the disciples, the Lord grieves over the slowness of their heart and the imperfection of their faith.

For this faith is the path that leads to the Lord and to the rest of hearts seeking love and righteousness, and burdened by the sorrow of this world.

The Lord sets before Philip and the other disciples not a lack of knowledge, but a lack of faith.

He repeats to them what He had said before: "I and the Father are one" (Jn 10:30). Therefore the words spoken by the Lord are the words of God the Father.

The Father is inseparable in essence from the Son and manifests His works in the Son: "The Father who abides in Me, He does the works."