(May 20, 2023 at 8:59 am)KerimF Wrote: This insistence arose mainly when people discuss Jesus’ saying: “I and 'the' Father are one”. (A side note: Jesus didn't say I and 'my' Father are one).
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Anyway, I also can’t call myself Christian because I knew Jesus based on my logical reasoning only, not by having faith in him. I guess it is well known that a formal Christian is supposed to believe in Jesus (The Savior) based solely on faith, as Pagans do towards their Idols. I am just an independent student of Jesus.
There has been a lot of debate about John 10:30 with the stock antitrinitarian interpretation being that Jesus was referring to one in purpose, as in “the Home Secretary and Prime Minister are as one on this issue”.
Given what John says elsewhere, and that happened next was an attempted stoning for blasphemy*, this seems unlikely to be all that John meant.
When the Early Church had picked themselves up after the post-Easter events, they started to ask questions about Jesus, but not in the way that the discussion is usually put.
They did not ask what God is, and then try to fit Jesus into that. They asked who God is, and realised that Jesus was that.
God is the One who said He would “swallow up death”, inaugurate His Kingdom, and redeem His people. These things Jesus did. Jobs that God had said He would do were done by Jesus. Therefore it became necessary to see Jesus as part of the identity of Israel's God.
They had arrived at a point where Christians like John cannot speak of Israel's God without thinking of Jesus, or of Jesus without thinking of the One God.
(*BTW this is not at all what John has in mind)
