1. The Claim to Deity (verse 30)
2. The Desire to Kill (verses 31-33)
3. The Appeal to Scripture (verses 34-39)
4. The Retreat to Perea (verses 40-42)

Let's go back into the early years of the church, around 320 AD. Jesus had risen from the dead. The message of Jesus had spread throughout the entire Roman Empire, bringing with it persecution. But the church had proven itself strong and undefeatable. So, the Romans had put forth an “edict of toleration,” meaning that Christians were to be “tolerated,” not “persecuted,” which brought about a season of peace for Christians.

But not all was peaceful inside the church. The church was in a crisis. Particularly, the church was in a crisis over the divinity of Jesus. In other words, was Jesus God? Or was Jesus merely a man? The church was divided.

On the one hand, the bishop of Alexandria, named Alexander, held that Jesus, the Word of God, was coeternal with God, and was therefore divine. On the other hand, there was a clergyman of Alexandria, named Arius, who held that Jesus was created by God the Father, and therefore, not co-equal with the Father.

The big division was over the eternity of Jesus, the Word of God. Was Jesus co-eternal with God, and thereby the creator of the world? Or, was Jesus the first created being, who then created the world?

Alexander said, “Yes!! Jesus is eternal!” Arius said, “No!! Jesus is not eternal. He was the first created being, who created all things. But he was not eternal."

Here’s the division. It’s all about where you draw the line between the creator and created things. On the one hand, you had Alexander, who believed that God and the Word (Jesus) were co-eternal. and thus, not being created, are distinct from creation. On the other hand, you had Arius, who believed that only God, the Father was eternal, and thus, the Word (Jesus) is part of the creation.

These two beliefs were dividing the professing Christian church. Alexander, the bishop, condemned the teaching of Arius and “removed him from all posts in the church in Alexandria.”^[1]

Arius thought that Alexander’s judgment against him was unjust. He refused to accept it. Protests erupted in Alexandra with people marching in the streets. They were shouting out the refrains of Arius, “There was when He was not.” “There was when He was not.” “There was when He was not.” This divide threatened the unity of the church.

The ruler of the Roman Empire at the time was Constantine. Above all, the Emperor wants religious peace among his people. So he called a “council of Christian bishops from all parts of the Empire.”^[2] Figuring that if he can get all of the religious leaders together, they might make peace in their interpretations of nature of Jesus.

So, in 325 AD, some 300 (or so) bishops from all over the Roman Empire came to debate this subject: “Is the Word of God eternal or not?” In other words, “Is Jesus God?”

This was a major crisis in the early church. So, Christian leaders from all over the empire came to Nicea to seek unity over these matters. The council met for about three months (May-July). A small amount of that time was spent on small issues pertaining to the end of persecution by the Roman Empire.^[3] But the majority of the time was spent debating this issue: “Is the Word of God eternal or not?” Was Jesus God? Or was Jesus a created being?

The Scriptures were read and studied and explained and debated. At first the council seemed polite. There was hope for a negotiation and a compromise that would enable the church to proceed united. But when Eusebius of Nicomedia, spoke about his views on Jesus being a created being, the assembly turned in an uproar. He was called a blasphemer. He was shouted down. The papers from which he spoke were snatched from his hand. They were torn to shreds. They were trampled underfoot.

It was clear that such a view could not exist in the church of Jesus Christ, nor could there be any compromise in these things. So, the council agreed upon a statement that clearly rejected the view of Arius. Here’s what they wrote:

“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of the Father, that is, from the substance of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father, through whom all things were made, both in heaven and on earth, who for us humans and for our salvation descended and became incarnate, becoming human, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended to the heavens, and will come to judge the living and the dead.

And in the Holy Spirit.

But those who say that there was when He was not, and that before being begotten He was not, or that He came from that which is not, or that the Son of God is of a different substance or essence, or that He is created, or mutable, these the catholic church anathematizes [that is, condemns to hell in the strongest of terms].

A good portion of this, then, would become the Nicene Creed, which we have quoted from time to time at Rock Valley Bible Church. And the Christian Church has been Trinitarian until this day: One God in three persons.
__________

Now, why do I give you that history lesson this morning? Because, this is the very issue that we will see this morning in our text. We see Jesus and the Jews battling over the nature of Jesus. Is Jesus God? Is he not God?

And just as emotionally charged as was the council of Nicea, so were the Jews when they encountered Jesus’ claims upon his own life. They didn’t write a statement of anathema. They picked up stones to stone Jesus and kill him!.

So, if you haven’t done so already, I invite you to open in your Bibles to John, chapter 10. The title of my message this morning is a quote from Jesus. He says in verse 30, “I and the Father are one.” This is where our passage ended last week. This is where our passage begins this week.

This statement of Jesus comes after he was asked by the Jews (in verse 24), “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus begins by rebuking them for their unbelief. “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep" (John 10:25-26).

Then Jesus continues on by telling them what is true about his sheep:

John 10:27-29
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

Last week, we spoke about these verses and how comforting they ought to be for every child of God, to think that we are in the hand of Jesus, and that we will never perish, and that we will have eternal life, and that our we are in the Father’s hand, and that nobody is able to snatch us out of his hand!

Nobody is able to snatch us out of his hand! Nobody is strong enough to snatch us out of his hand! even if they try, because God is “greater than all.”

Then, Jesus speaks these words in verse 30, "I and the Father are one." I’m calling this, 

1. The Claim to Deity (verse 30)

That’s what Jesus is doing in this verse. He is claiming to be one with the Father. He is claiming to be God, himself.

John 10:30
I and the Father are one.

The Jews were seeking to know whether or not Jesus was the Messiah (verse 24). And Jesus said, “I am God!” (John 10:30).

Now, note, this doesn’t mean that “I and the Father are the same.” If you look above, in verse 28, we see the hand of Jesus. Then in verse 29, we see the hand of the Father. This is not the same hand. Jesus has a hand. The Father has a hand.

The Father and Jesus are not the same. Yet, Jesus says, they are “one.” They are “one God.” Yet, they have their separate hands.

This is a good picture of how the church has chosen to speak about the Trinity: One God, three persons. Literally, the word “Trinity” means, “tri-unity.” In addition here to Jesus, the God-head, the Trinity, consists of three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The best diagram that I know of to explain the Trinity is called, "The Shield of the Trinity."^[5] It's essentially a triangle with "God" is in the middle. Then, you have the three persons of the Godhead on the three points of the triangle. Along the space between "God" and father is the word, "is." This forms the sentence, "The Father is God." This is also true of the space between the Son and the Spirit, forming the sentences, "The Son is God" and "The Spirit is God." Then, in the space between the three outer names are the words, "is not." This form three sentences: "The Father is not the Son." "The Son is not the Spirit." And "The Spirit is not the Father."

When you take all of Scripture into account, this is the best way to think about God. That there is only one God. This is clear from Deuteronomy 6:4, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the  LORD is one.”

Yet, even from the beginning of the creation, there were hints of the plurality of the Godhead, when God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). This was the single being, God, in the beginning, speaking in 1st person plural, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”. This same plurality is seen in verse 30, "I and the Father are one.”

There is plurality, in the fact that the subject is plural. There is unity, in saying that the Father and Son is “one.” As you work through the Scriptures, you see these two truths clearly presented: (1) There is only one God, which we are called to worship. There is no place for any God, but the LORD, Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (2) Yet, you also see in the Scripture that there are times when Jesus is identified as “God.” No book of the Bible is more clear about this than the book of John. It begins with a statement of the deity of Jesus. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). In verse 14, this word is identifies as Jesus, who “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Furthermore, there are times in the New Testament that the Holy Spirit is identified as “God.” In Acts 5, when Ananias and his wife, Sapphira, schemed together to deceive the church, they lied against the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3). they lied against God (Acts 5:4). “God” and the “Holy Spirit” are used interchangeably in the text.

These facts have led the church, from her early days to accept the Biblical doctrine of the Trinity: one God in three persons. This is what we see in verse 30, when Jesus says, "I and the Father are one.” We see unity and plurality.

So, in verse 30, we see "The Claim to Deity." The Jews did not like this claim. In fact, they wanted to kill him. This is my second point: 

2. The Desire to Kill (verses 31-33)

Look at verse 31,

John 10:31
The Jews picked up stones again to stone him.

The Jews understood what Jesus was saying. In claiming unity with God, Jesus was claiming that he was God.

Stoning the one making this claim is a proper response according to the law. "Whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death" (Leviticus 24:16).

This is what the Jews understood Jesus to be doing: committing blasphemy. In saying that he and the Father are one, is essentially saying that he was God. something that they considered to be blasphemous, and worthy of death.

In verse 31, we see that this wasn’t the first time that the Jews responded this way to Jesus. Did you notice the word, “again”? "The Jews picked up stones again to stone him."

The other time was in John, chapter 8., near the end of the chapter. Do you remember the issue there? Jesus was arguing with the Jews. The argument transitioned to talk about Abraham. The conversation went like this:

John 8:56-58
Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

This is a clear reference to Jesus claiming to be deity. “I am” is the name of God! And Jesus says, before Abraham ever came into existence, “I am” “I am God.” We see the response of attempted stoning:

John 8:59
So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

And the same issue is here before us this morning. Jesus is claiming to be God, and "The Jews picked up stones again to stone him" (John 10:31).

This was not so unlike the response of those at the counsel of Nicea, who shouted down Eusebius of Nicomedia, calling him a liar and a blasphemer. Only those at the council didn’t pick up stones with the intent to kill, but these men did.

Jesus confronts their actions in verse 32,

John 10:32
Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?”

This draws us back to the big debate of the day, about the character of Jesus. The Jews hated him and claimed that he was possessed of the devil. Yet, he was doing great signs. We saw this debate earlier in the chapter.

John 10:19-21
There was again a division among the Jews because of these words. Many of them said, “He has a demon, and is insane; why listen to him?” Others said, “These are not the words of one who is oppressed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?”

Nicodemus said it well, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him” (John 3:2). But Jesus here takes it to another level, Not only is God him, but he himself is God! But the Jews were not buying it.

John 10:33
The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”

Now, if their claims were correct, and Jesus wasn’t God, their actions were totally understandable. If they had misunderstood something that Jesus had said, Jesus could easily have diffused the situation by clarifying their misunderstanding. “Men, You have made a mistake. You have misunderstood me. When I said, ‘I and the Father are one,’ I didn’t mean that I was God. I meant that we are ‘one in purpose.’ God is with me and I’m simply seeking to follow him. I am not making myself out to be God! So put your stones down.”

But Jesus doesn’t do that. His silence is a strong argument of the claims of Jesus to divinity. Instead, Jesus appeals to Scripture. This is my third point: 

3. The Appeal to Scripture (verses 34-39)

From my perspective, this section of John, is the most difficult of any sections in the entire gospel. Consider what Jesus says,

John 10:34-38
Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken—do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

Now before we dig into the Scripture that Jesus quotes, let’s first reflect upon what Jesus says about the Scripture. “Scripture cannot be broken!”

There are many things on earth that can be broken. Your car can break. Your refrigerator can break. Your favorite mug can break. But God’s word cannot be broken. Take this as a fact! When the word of God speaks, it speaks truth! it will never fail.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished" (Matthew 5:18). Do you come to the Scripture with this in view? Do you trust the Bible as your only true guide in life? Let’s do so!

OK, back to the argument. Jesus appeals to the Scripture found in Psalm 82:6, in which the Psalmist calls human being “gods.” In the context of Psalm 82, these “gods” are judges in Israel who had acted corruptly. The Psalm begins with these words,

Psalm 82:1-2
God has taken his place in the divine council;
    in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
“How long will you judge unjustly
    and show partiality to the wicked?

These human judges were failing in their duty to judge justly. Later in the Psalm, the LORD speaks about these judges:

Psalm 82:5
They have neither knowledge nor understanding,
    they walk about in darkness;
    all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

The LORD says that these men are corrupt and walk in darkness. Then, he addressed them:

Psalm 82:6-7
I said, “You are gods,
    sons of the Most High, all of you;
nevertheless, like men you shall die,
    and fall like any prince.”

In other words, these human “gods,” will die like any other man because they have acted corruptly. They have not lived up to who they are. They are judges! They are “gods.”

In some regards, it is entirely appropriate to understand judges as being “gods.” They act like any god would act. They sit in the seat of judgment. They have sovereign determination over the course of your life. They can sentence you to a night in jail. They can let you go free. They can send you away for life in prison. They can order your death. To stand before a judge is to stand before one who has sovereign control over some area of your life. This is what the Scriptures are indicating in Psalm 82. Judges are like “gods.”

But Psalm 82 goes beyond this, Psalm 82:6 reads this way, “I said, ‘You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you.’” Though they have divine status, God says, "nevertheless, like men you shall die" (Psalm 82:7).

Jesus appeals to this Scripture. The question is, “Why?” “What argument is Jesus making from this text?”

The argument here that Jesus makes isn’t that he was like those in the Old Testament that the LORD identified as “gods,” as if to say, “Why are you angry at me, claiming to be God. In the Old Testament, people were called ‘gods.’ I’m just like them! I too am a man, whom the LORD calls a ‘god.’” That’s not the argument that he was making. That would deny the entire context of John 10, where the Jews were attempting to stone him for blasphemy. Jesus didn’t try to deny his divinity one bit!

Instead, Jesus pressed them to belief in him and his miracles! Jesus pressed them to believe that he and the Father are one and the same!

John 10:37-38
If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

Yet another statement of the unity that Jesus has with his father. Jesus was not making the argument that he was a “god” like those of Psalm 82 to whom God said, “You are gods.”

Instead, Jesus quotes Psalm 82 with a different purpose, which, I believe, these Jews full well understood. Jesus quotes Psalm 82 not to say that he is claiming to be a “god” like those in Psalm 82 were called, but to give a category in the minds of the Jews, that God, himself identified people as “gods.”

See, the Jews had such a dichotomy between the creator and the created, that the creator could in no way, whatsoever come into his creation. The divine could in no way could be human. Yet, this is exactly what Psalm 82 was saying. “Gods” were upon the earth, in the form of wicked judges. Then Jesus says, “How can you argue against me saying that I’m the ‘Son of God’”?

See, the issue for the Jews is verse 33, "You, being a man, make yourself God." It’s the category of the divine entering into the human existence that bothered them so, which was exactly what Jesus was. He was God come into the flesh.

Rather than being corrupt, like the judges of Psalm 82, he was a righteous man, who did good things. But this didn’t deter his enemies. We read in verse 39,

John 10:39
Again they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands.

John here uses the word, “again” to recall a former time when they tried to arrest him. He mentions “again,” because it wasn’t his time and he wasn’t arrested.

- John 7:30 They were seeking to arrest him,
- John 7:32 The Pharisees sent officers to arrest him.
- John 7:44 Some of them wanted to arrest him.

Yet, he was never arrested. John 7:30 tells us why, "They were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come." This leads us nicely into our final point this morning (which will be short): 

4. The Retreat to Perea (verses 40-42)

John 10:40
He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing at first, and there he remained.

Perea is the name of the region “across the Jordan.” Perea literally means “beyond.” It’s where John ministered. When Jesus was there, he was compared with John.

John 10:41-42
And many came to him. And they said, “John did no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.” And many believed in him there.

The question is this: What did John say about Jesus? John's words about Jesus are contained in John 1 and John 3. I want simply to read some of these words.

John 1:25-27
They asked him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” John answered them, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”

When John was questioned about his baptism, he said that one is coming who will have a bigger baptism! Jesus is so great that he is not worthy to untie his sandals. All of these things are true! (John 10:42). The narrative continues:

John 1:28
These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

These words were spoken in Perea! This is exactly where Jesus was when the people believed in him saying that "everything that John said about this man was true.” Those in Perea had front row seats into everything John said. Consider more of what John said:

John 1:29
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

This is one of the things that John said about Jesus. He was the one to come to take away the sin of the world. Those in Perea only heard about it, but they believed.

Is this not why we all are here today? Because, though only hearing about Jesus, we have believed in him.

This sermon was delivered to Rock Valley Bible Church on April 6, 2025 by Steve Brandon.
For more information see www.rockvalleybiblechurch.org.

[1] Justo González, The Story of Christianity, volume 1 (San Francisco: Harber & Row Publishers, 1984), 162.

[2] Ibid.

[3] For the first three centuries of Christianity, there was great persecution against Christians. This counsel was the first time that the Christian leaders were able to assemble in such peace. So, they discussed how to standardize a process to restore those who had buckled under persecution back into the church. They also dealt with procedure of how to establish leaders in the churches.

[4] Eusebius of Caesarea, Epistle to the Caesareans.

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shield_of_the_Trinity.