These verses (34-36) have been sometimes regarded as a partial retraction, or at least a material modification of the declaration, “I and my Father are one;” as indicating that Jesus Christ is a Son of God only as every obedient soul is a child of God (1 John 3:1). If this passage stood alone, such an interpretation might possibly be given to it; but if the audience, the circumstances, the effect, and the other utterances of the speaker be taken into account, it cannot be fairly so understood. This sentence is spoken to a mob for the purpose of checking their rage. They have understood Christ to claim divinity. He does not in terms explicitly disavow it. On the contrary, when his explanation is ended, they resume their design (ver. 39), and he is obliged to flee for his life. We should not look in such an utterance for a disclosure of the profoundest truths respecting Christ’s character, not because Christ would conceal or modify the truth to save his life, but because an angry mob is not the sort of an audience to whom he would choose to reveal it, or indeed could reveal it, a certain receptiveness of soul being necessary to the comprehension of spiritual truth. The argument of these verses seems to me to be this: He to whom the Spirit of God comes, and who receives it and becomes in so far an exponent and manifestation of God, is in a sense divine; he becomes partaker of the divine nature; a sharer of the divine life (Rom. 8:29; Heb. 12:10; 2 Pet. 1:4). This is the testimony of the Scriptures which cannot be set aside. He, then, who is not of this world but from above (ch. 8:23), and whom the Father consecrated above and sent down into this world, is not guilty of blasphemy in calling himself a Son of God. In other words, Christ compares himself with inspired men only to contrast himself with them; he shows that, even according to the principles of the O. T. Scriptures, by which the Jews pretended to condemn him, he was not guilty of blasphemy, even if, being but a man, he had made himself a son and so a representative of God, while he, at the same time, clearly claims to be other and higher than the O. T. prophets and judges. But for the full disclosure of Christ’s character, we must look to his quiet conferences with his own disciples, who were at least willing, if not able, to understand him. 37 If[422] I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. [422] ch. 14:10, 11; 15:24. 38 But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father _is_ in me, and I in him.