Jesus declared to his disciples, “I and my Father are one.” (John 10:30) This statement has been misused in an effort to prove that Jesus and his Father were one and the same person. But all will concede, we believe, that there are forms of oneness other than that of a similarity of being. In the seventeenth chapter of John, Jesus is quoted as praying for the oneness between his church and himself as existed between himself and his Father. This, obviously, is a oneness of will and purpose.

It is in this same sense, according to these words of Jesus, that he and the Father are one. This is clearly borne out by many things the Master said. During his ministry he emphasized over and over that he came not to do his own will, but the will of the Heavenly Father who sent him. When Jesus was facing mockery, ignominy, and death, he asked the Father to let this cup pass from him if it were possible. “Nevertheless,” he said, “not my will, but thine be done.” (Luke 22:42; Matt. 26:39; John 5:30; 6:38) The Heavenly Father’s will was ever paramount in the Master’s life, hence he could truly say, “I and my Father are one.”

This is also the reason Jesus could truthfully say, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” (John 14:9) That this statement of Jesus does not mean that in seeing him one actually saw Jehovah is clearly shown by both the Old and the New Testament statements to the effect that no one can look upon God and live. (Ex. 33:20; I Tim. 6:16; 1:17; John 1:18) If those who looked upon Jesus in the flesh thereby actually saw God, it would mean that God, the Creator of the universe, is a human being. What Jesus meant was that his life and ministry served to reveal the Father to those who had “eyes to see.”

Besides, it should be remembered that Jesus in the flesh was an exact counterpart of Father Adam, of whom it is said that he was created in the “image” of God. This, of course, refers to a moral image, not a physical likeness. It means that Adam was capable of discerning between right and wrong, as those principles were enunciated in the law of his Creator. This is the reason he was held responsible for his sin.

Jesus, like Adam before the fall, was also in the image of God—a perfect, sinless human being. It was necessary that Jesus be thus, else he could not have redeemed Adam and his race from death. He came to earth as a representative of the Heavenly Father, and everything he did and said was just what the Father would have done and said had he personally visited the earth. Thus it was true that, in a very wonderful way, those who saw him saw the Father. It was the only way that a fallen human being could see God and live.

This scriptural understanding of the identify of Jesus as the beloved and only begotten of the Father, should greatly enhance our appreciation of him, and give him the place in our hearts he merits and deserves—second only to Jehovah himself. We should honor the Son even as we honor the Father. (John 5:23) God so highly regarded and honored the Son that he even commanded the angels to worship him. (Heb. 1:6,7) If we take the view that Jesus was God himself, then we have the inconsistency of the Master praying to himself, as well as other incongruities in connection with his earthly life and ministry.