By Metropolitan Saint Anthony Khrapovitsky
http://orthodoxcanada.org/012004/saintantony.html
?????????????? WHY DID THE LORD JESUS CHRIST
????????????????????? NOT CALL HIMSELF GOD?
Why did the Lord Jesus Christ not call Himself God? Such a question must be answered by us, children of an unbelieving generation, because of the numerous denials of Christ's Divinity supposedly based upon the fact that the Saviour never called Himself God.
The seductive character of this question is becoming stronger in the contemporary mentality, again, thanks to the influence of Western teachings upon our [Russian] school instruction on the faith. The weeding out of these Western influences upon Christianity must begin with the solving of the indicated perplexity about Christ's Divinity. It is, of course, unarguable that this truth is one of the most valuable and most holy truths of Christianity, which would cease to be Christian if it lost the salutary faith in this truth. On the other hand, however, the Protestant teaching about a saving faith in the Divinity of Jesus Christ, without regard to the struggle for inner transformation, bringing the heart into a natural accord with His teachings and commandments (i.e., "works"), illuminates the Gospel history in a very one-sided manner. If the fulness of our Salvation wrought for us on earth by Jesus Christ amounts to only believing and having faith in His Divinity, then that truth should have been the main subject of His preaching. (By the way, the distorted teaching about Christ as a Divine substitutionary sacrifice makes the matter even worse). Indeed, all Protestant interpretative guides on the Gospel which have been translated into Russian direct the explanation of all the Saviour's discourses toward this truth, with little attention being paid to the direct, existential moral sense of these discourses. If these guide books were accurate, it would seem that the Lord Jesus Christ, in each of His discourses, should have pointed out His Divinity and His role as a substitutionary sacrifice, that the whole aim of His preaching should have been directed at this. It that case, simply the fact of His Divinity would have totally covered the whole content of Christianity.
And suddenly, critics of Christianity point out that nowhere did the Lord directly or clearly call Himself God; once, in fact, He said that the "Father is greater than" He, and another time He calls the Father His God and the God of His followers. If the teaching of Christ's Divinity was the sole aim of His preaching, then how can it be explained that He did not directly state what comprised all the essence of His work on earth? Now we understand the sharpness of this perplexity and the need of an explanation and clarification of it. We will not even speak of the heretical notion of Christ as a substitutionary sacrifice, for this is nowhere spoken of in the Holy Scripture, nor by the holy fathers of the Church.
Is such a view of the Gospel teaching characteristic of Orthodox teachers, as if propagating only the dogma about Christ's Divinity? Naturally our holy fathers did not pass up a chance to point out this truth in all of Christ's sayings in which it is contained. They were all the more adamant in this when struggling against the Arians who renounced this salutary dogma. In contrast to contemporary Protestant interpretations, however, Orthodox Christian exegetics do not claim that the Lord strove to inspire faith in His Divinity in all those who heard His words. On the contrary, He concealed His Divinity. Thus, in several stikheras of the Festal Menaion and of the Pentecostarion, Christ is called "hidden God." For example, He concealed His impending Resurrection not only from the general population, but also from the devil who led the Jews in their judgment of Him, not knowing His Divinity and His authority to destroy the gates of hades (i.e., the power of death).
Does this approach of the holy fathers agree with the Gospel story itself? Of course it does, as we shall demonstrate right now. We shall demonstrate that Jesus Christ had the intention of concealing His Divinity from people who were unprepared for the acceptance of this truth. If we understand the our Lord and Teachers motives for this, then I hope we will understand why He did not directly and literally call Himself God, even though He engendered in His apostles faith in Himself as God.
CHRIST'S REFERENCES TO HIS DIVINITY.
We will say a few words about this faith before turning to the Gospel story. The Saviour revealed it to the holy apostles and even to the unbelieving Jews when they directly asked Him, "Who art Thou?" "I Am from the beginning as I told you," replied the Lord. "Even before Abraham was, I Am" (Jn. 8:58); "I and the Father are One" Jn. 10:29). In these sayings the Lord revealed His pre-eternal existence and consubstantiality with the Father. When the Pharisees expressed doubt in the teaching authority of the Saviour, He directly informed them of His Divine right to forgive sins: "That you may know absolutely that the Son of Man has the power on earth to forgive sins..." (Mk. 2:10). The Lord had this power, this glory, "before the world existed" (Jn. 17:5). He confessed Himself to be omniscient and omnipresent: "as My Father knows Me, and I know the Father" (Jn. 10:15); "No one knows the Son but the Father, no one knows the Father but the Son" (Mt. 11:27); "No one has ever gone up to heaven; but there is One Who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man Who dwells in heaven" (Jn. 3:13). It is quite clear that here the Saviour spoke personally of Himself.
There are many more of Christ's words that can be found in the Gospel from which it is evident that He confessed Himself as God, even though He did not say directly, "I am God." It is evident that by the above-cited words, the Lord apprised those who asked that He is an eternal, personal Being, consciously living before His physical birth and preordained to return to His former glory, equal with God, From these words it is evident that, although the Lord Jesus Christ did not once call Himself God, this dogma is nevertheless contained clearly and definitely in His discourses.
It is impossible, however, not to note the circumstance that these words were spoken only amidst Christ's disciples or elicited, so to speak, by the persistent questions of the Jews. Thus, we find fully substantiated the sense of the Church teaching that, as much as was possible, the Lord hid His Divinity. Now let us turn to review this thought in Gospel history, as we had promised.
THE GOSPEL STORY AND CHRIST'S DIVINITY.
Some interpreters are inclined to see Christ's preaching of His Divinity in all Gospel events and words. They point first of all to His miracles as to actions performed precisely for the aim of such a revelation. There is no doubt that Christ's miracles were one of the most important motives for His disciples to believe in His superhuman worthiness. Nevertheless, see whether the Lord always wished to make use of the spreading of such faith. In the first while of His preaching, the Saviour forbade the spreading of word about the miraculous healings which were experienced by various sufferers. Thus He forbade the leper to announce the miraculous healing (Mk. 1), and the same with the demoniac (Mk. 3; Lk. 4:41); He concealed His miracle at the wedding in Cana of Galilee (Jn. 2); He forbade the apostles to speak about His miraculous transfiguration; and the raising of Jairus' daughter He showed to only five persons. But, you see, in other cases the Saviour Himself ordered that His miracles be proclaimed, for example, the case of the Gadarene demoniac; to John's disciples who had wondered about His identity; finally, many of His miracles were worked before a great number of people, as for example: the feeding of the multitudes with first five and then seven loaves; the raising of the son of the widow of Nain; the raising of Lazarus, etc.
This contrast is completely logical, and it will provide us with excellent aid in resolving the original question. The Lord sometimes revealed His wonder-working power and sometimes concealed it; by what principle was He guided in such cases?
It seems that it would be easiest of all to give an answer through an opposite question: what would the result have been if the Lord began His preaching with the revelation about His Divinity, if while working miracles of healing He would have concluded them with a confession of the truth that He is God Incarnate, not representing or less than God, but equal to the Father? People would have died from terror and amazement (see Ex. 33:20).[1] Our soul cannot experience a clear and unshielded appearance of God's infinite Presence before itself. No one would imagine that this is an exaggeration. In those few cases when the Saviour did reveal not all the truth of His Divinity, but only a small part of His glory, people were spared feelings of terror; thus it was with His friends and enemies alike. "Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful person," said Peter after the miraculous catching of fish, and during Christ's transfiguration on the mountain, His disciples were seized by such fear that they fell face down upon the earth and they lay there in this state until such time as the vision of the Lord's glory ended and He, coming up to them in His humble appearance, said, "It is I, be not afraid." But another time, His similar words, "It is I," as if united with an inner affirmation of His Divinity, and spoken before a whole horde of His enemies, caused them to "go backward and fall of the ground."
It is true that these confessions of His Divinity by Christ the Saviour were not the only ones: often they aroused either wickedness or mockery from His opponents. Such a response of indifference to similar revelations, however, was possible only because those people darkened their minds with passions or vainglory to such a degree that they either did not believe or did not understand Christ's words. When the thought crossed their mind of even a certain probability that the Teacher Jesus was not a simple prophet, but the One Who had to come down to earth from God, they came to terror and amazement, and in no way dared to touch Him (Lk. 4:30; Jn. 7:30; 8:59; 10:39; Lk. 11:19). Think now: could people have endured a completely clearly expressed thought,confirmed by miracles, that this Teacher constantly communing with them is God? For, not only ordinary sinners, but also God-enlightened prophets and apostles had died from fear when even an angel had appeared to them. Moreover, a vision of God cannot be endured even by angels, archangels, cherubim and seraphim, who with fear covered their faces before His glory and could not for a single moment calm their spirit from the exalted doxology, as was revealed by the prophet Isaiah [i.e. the vision of Jesus Christ, the Lord of Hosts in Ch.6. See Jn.23:41].
IN WHAT MANNER THE LORD DID TEACH ABOUT HIS DIVINITY.
The Lord did teach the truth of His Divinity, but He related this truth in parts, so that His disciples would assimilate it gradually. The human mind is so alien to grasping the realization that one who is communing with it is a heavenly being, not to mention, God, that as the evangelists testify, even the apostles accepted such words [revealing His Divinity] as simply enigmatic, and they consciously mastered them only after Christ's resurrection (Jn. 2:22). They did not assimilate the Lord's very foretelling of His resurrection (Mk. 9:10), and during His betrayal they completely forgot this forewarning which the Teacher reaffirmed to them one hour before the betrayal (Mt. 26:32); they forgot it so decisively that they gave no credence to the myrrh-bearers when they announced to them the appearance of the Resurrected Lord (Mk 16:13) They were unable even to believe their own eyes when they saw Him before themselves, until they felt Him with their hands and gave Him food to eat.
It was only then, when the doubting Thomas felt His wounds, that human lips for the first time clearly confessed Christ as true God: "My Lord and my God," and Christ approved this confession.
Every detail of history is acknowledged as true if it passes an inspection with events contemporary to it or with subsequent events. Our faith in the Divinity of Jesus Christ is affirmed in an attentive research of events C even of those events which, at a superficial glance, appear confusing for the believers.
Thus, many are confused by the fact that, after His resurrection, the Saviour seldom appeared to His disciples, and then for only short periods; that He did not live with them for the forty days until His ascension.
WHY DID JESUS CHRIST NOT DIRECTLY REVEAL HIS DIVINITY?
Let us hope that after the preceding explanations everyone will now understand that it could not be otherwise. The apostles and myrrhbearers had now come to believe unanimously in His Divinity. In the book of Acts and in the Apostolic Epistles, words of this faith are quoted. The Lord who was present "then opened their mind to understand the scripture" and they began to believe in Him in the way that subsequent Christians who confess the Symbol of Faith do. Could they have endured continual communing with the Resurrected God-Man? The Gospel replies to this question. The words of the angel to the myrrhbearers about the resurrection filled their hearts with such terror that they "said nothing to anyone for they were seized by fear" (Mk. 16:8).
It is true that the sudden appearance of the Beloved Lord animated the two myrrhbearers and, earlier, Mary of Magdala, with such ecstasy that they forgot all that had gone before and fell at His feet, but they received a warning and when they came to themselves, the Lord became invisible. And what else? In the hearts of the disciples who were boundlessly dedicated to Him so that they did not fear His cruel-hearted enemies, there was as much fear as joy (Mt. 28:8). In order to spare their frail human hearts, the Lord spoke for some time with Luke and Cleophas, but as soon as they recognized Him, He disappeared from their eyes. When, on that same night, He appeared to the apostles, who had already believed in His resurrection, they again wavered in faith, but they were unanimous in their fright (Lk. 24:34, 37). All this was before Thomas' confession, and after that event, when the remaining disciples heard that Christ is God and when the Lord directly affirmed such a confession: "You believed because you saw Me," then behold what fear encompassed their hearts at the appearance of the Teacher. They saw Him on the sea-shore from their boat and did not recognize Him, and only the beloved and most daring discipleCthe one who was not afraid to stand at the Cross and to go to the sepulchreCsays, not aloud, but to Peter alone: "This is the Lord." Then, the fishers went ashore and the Lord, as if recreating for a time their former communal life with Him, says: "Come, eat." And what kind of feeling reigns in their hearts? A feeling of fear. Of the disciples "not one dared to ask Him, `Who art Thou?' knowing that this was the Lord" (Jn. 21:12). If it was thus with the chosen vessels of Grace, with Christ's friends, then think: could other people have preserved themselves intact for even an hour if they had come to believe that the Incarnate God was with them? This is why God, in the words of Apostle Peter, "... raised up on the third day and showed Him openly; not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before by God, that is, to us, who ate and drank with Him after His resurrection from the dead" (Acts 10:40-41).
There was also another reason why the Lord was not in a hurry to reveal His Divinity to people, even to believers. Let us uncover this motive according to the Gospel itself.
During His earthly life, whom did the Lord call believers? Those who believed that He was from God, that His words were God's words (Jn. 7:16-18), that He was the Son of God. Concerning that still unfull faith, the Lord observed a special order in the hearts of people, and this is explained for us when we examine the relationship of the Saviour to those who came to believe, some of whom He commanded' to conceal His miracles, and some to proclaim them.
If we will dismiss from ourselves the Protestant notion, widespread among us [Russians], that faith in Christ's Divinity is able to save in itself, rather than being the main support of virtue, and accept the apostolic word, "This is God's will, that you be holy" (1 Ths. 4:3), then we will clearly understand why the Lord sometimes concealed His miracle-working power from people. It was not pleasing to Him to convince people of His Divinity, or even of His prophetic worthiness, by purely external means, for then later the subjugated human minds would accept His commandments slavishly and not by a free accord of the mind with the teaching of virtue.
Many use this expression in an evil way: "free accord of the mind" and give rise to an understanding of faith itself as something not related to ordinary mental proof. This is completely in vain. Our faith is alien to blinding arbitrariness. A free, unforced mastering of faith in the truth and holiness of Christ's commandments and, from this, in His Divinity is, for an attentive, impartial researcher, as forced as the rules of arithmetic, but the attentiveness and impartiality themselves are dispositions and qualities of soul to which nothing can compel a person: "search the Scripture, for you suppose through it to have everlasting life, and it testifies about Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you might have life" (Jn. 5:39-40). Incidentally, if contemporary people understood the simple truth that the impartial mind leads to faith, but that attaining impartiality in the research of objects of faith is very difficult for those who do not want to believe, and even impossible without Grace-filled help, then the immense literature about knowledge and faith, about science and religion, would lose its significance, and thinkers could occupy themselves with more useful questions of the spirit.
Let us return, however, to the Gospel. The Lord, we see, desired that people would first of all begin to love the new virtue which He preached. Thus it was with the Pharisees' men-at-arms who did not want to take Him under arrest, having heard and listened to His heavenly teaching. In justification, they told their masters: "never has a man spoken as this Man." Yes, it was pleasing to the Saviour that people would, by the personal testimony of their hearts, come to the conviction that the Preacher of this teaching is not a simple person, but an Envoy of God, so that finally, having become confirmed in this, they would accept with full trust those extraordinary words of the Saviour about Himself. The meaning of those words was not fully understandable to them while the Lord was still among them. After His resurrection, however, these words became clear to them with logical clarity, revealing the truth that the Redeemer? was worthy of Divine honour equal to that of the Father, as Light of Light, True God of True God, and all the rest, according to our Symbol of Faith.
We said: with logical clarity, because, of the logical sense of the aforementioned words of Jesus Christ about Himself, there is only one which is expounded in the Symbol of Faith, but the frail souls of people during the Saviour's earthly life could not dare to fully penetrate into the sense of the wondrous words and were satisfied with the conviction that their Teacher was a higher Envoy of God, Whose Being had only recently been clothed in a humble and debased appearance of a servile person and Who, in the not too distant future, would reveal Himself in all His glory.
With such a comprehension about the aims of Christ's method of teaching, it will become fully understandable to us when He concealed His Divine qualities and when He revealed them. He concealed them in the beginning of His preaching in order to avoid the mental enslavement of His listeners. He especially concealed those most striking and compelling miracles which he showed in His transfiguration and in His power over what is most important of all in a human throng, i.e., food and drink (in Cana of Galilee). The Lord revealed His miracles and commanded that they be preached about when the minds of the listeners were either freely disposed to receiving His words and thus were not forced, but only confirmed by the miracles, or were already so steeled against the truth of His heavenly words that such wondrous signs as even the raising of Lazarus could not convert them.
Yet for all the carefulness of the Lord that those who came near to Him in faith and love would understand that the nearness of the Lord to their hearts depended upon their renunciation of passions and of all evil, He nevertheless sometimes met a lack of understanding of this truth, even among His best disciples. The multitude of miracles done before them did not always move them but, on the contrary, they sometimes attempted to make use of supernatural power in order to do evil: they wanted to burn with heavenly fire the city of the foolish Samaritans and sought superiority before one another in the heavenly kingdom.
What grieved our Saviour most of all: unbelief or belief so alien to the mastering of the Christian spirit? We think that one and the other grieved Him in equal measure. This will be confirmed by an examination of the very Gospel event by means of which some reader would perhaps hope to object to us. The Lord showed forth the miracle of feeding the people with five loaves before a huge multitude, and the consequences of this miracle were altogether undesirable to Him: the people resolved to proclaim Him their king and to go against the Romans.
See now, how this event occurred. The Saviour did not work this miracle in order to strike the people with His supernatural power. The Lord had often taught that one must not be concerned about what one will eat or drink or wear, but rather to search for God's kingdom and its truth, and all these other things would be added to one. These people, having forgotten about the needs of their bodies, followed after the Lord into a distant wilderness. The people acted that day according to the commandment of the Lord: were they not to be justified in this deed? The Lord was "moved with compassion" then, but later had to remind the apostles, who were confused about not having bread with themselves, "O ye of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves because you have brought no bread? Do you not yet understand, nor remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you took up ..." (Mt. 16:8-9). And so, compassion toward the people and the confirmation of the faithful in an unconcerned relationship to physical needsCthis is what motivated the miracles of the loaves. Not only did the Lord not rejoice in that fervent but unwise faith, but He even fulfilled another miracle in order to avoid the people's ecstasies. He concealed Himself from them and miraculously crossed over the lake on the water. When the people found Him next day on the other side of the sea, already somewhat calmed from their first impression, the Lord began to upbraid them, and at this point the precariousness of their external faith was revealed, for those who yesterday had exclaimed: "This is truly that prophet who must come into the world," said today: "What strange words! Who can listen to this?" and they grumbled against Him so that "from this time, many of His disciples went away from Him and were not with Him" (Jn. 6:14, 60, 65). Here is the explanation of these words of the Evangelist about faith based on external proofs: "When He was in Jerusalem during the feast of Passover, many believed on His name, seeing the miracles which He did. But Jesus Himself did not commend Himself to them, because He knew all people" (Jn. 2:23-24). The Lord knew that the Jews would lose this external faith as soon as they realized how much His teaching contradicted their passions. "I do not accept glory from men: but I know you; you do not have love toward God in you. I came in the name of My Father and you do not receive Me, but if another will come in his own name, you will receive him" (Jn. 5:42-44).
With love, the Lord showed His miracles for a confirmation of the beginning faith, when John's disciples came to ask Him: "Are you He Who must come, or do we wait for another?" He answered them by pointing to what they themselves saw: "the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have the gospel preached to them" (Mt. 11:3-5).
The Lord especially liked to fulfil miraculous healings on the Sabbath, in order to destroy the involuntary doubting of His commandments, which even the good Jews could not avoid, as they honoured the Sabbath laws in a superstitious and exaggerated manner. It was only after the miraculous healings on the Sabbath and the unmasking of the hypocrites that "all His adversaries were ashamed and all the people rejoiced in His glorious deeds" (Lk. 13:17).
In order to free these good people from prejudices based on pharisaical distortions of the scriptural faith, the Lord pointed directly to His heavenly authority, which the people correctly understood as a confession of His equality with the Father: " `My Father has worked until now, and I work.' And the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, not only because He had violated the Sabbath, but had also called God His Father, making Himself equal to God" (Jn. 5:17-19). In another similar case, the Saviour says: "The Son of Man is Master of the Sabbath" (Mt. 12:8). Those of the Jews who were evil argued stubbornly against the Lord's words, and here He again demonstrates that miracles and prophecies are not the cause of faith in His teachings but, on the contrary, the aversion to His commandments is the cause of unbelief in His miracles: "Why do you not understand My discourses? Because you cannot hear My word" (Jn. 8:37, 43, and 5:38, 40, 44). In this selection of sayings, the Lord demanded faith from those who asked for miraculous healings, but refused to fulfil a miracle for adversaries who did not believe His teaching, but only promised them "the sign of Jonas," and asked sufferers who sought healings: "Can you believe? Everything is possible to one who believes; you will receive according to your faith, etc." From this point of view, we will be able to correctly understand that Gospel narrative which leads many unwise contemporaries to say that Christ's miracles were done by "magnetic power" and were, therefore, only possible with faith in Him. In Jesus' homeland, St Mark relates, the people did not believe in Him "and were offended in Him" (6:3). "And [the Lord] could not perform any miracle there" (6:5). Here the words are about a purely moral impossibility, about the pointlessness of fulfilling miracles for the unbelieving. And the present-day interpreters would be convinced of this if only they would read all the way through to the end of this narrative by which they are tempted. For, it is said further: "only upon a few ill did He lay His hands and heal them. And He marvelled at their unbelief" (6:5-6). It is evident that the miracle-working power did not leave the Saviour here but, on the contrary, was so ready to be poured upon His compatriots that their stubborn unbelief was an object of marvel even to the Seer-of-hearts.
And so, the Lord did not coerce faith in Himself, although He could have attained this by miracles, but when the unbelievers asked Him directly: "are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" Jesus said, "I Am, and you will see the Son of Man seated on the right hand of power and in the future coming on heavenly clouds" (Mk. 14:61-62).
Of course, no sectarianism can interpret such clear words in a pantheistic sense, but only in a personal sense.
CONCLUSION.
In conclusion, let us resolve the perplexity which Moslems ?and Arians [Unitarians; Sosinians] find in some of the Lord's sayings. The former especially like to point to Christ's words: "Is it not written in your law: I said you are gods" (Jn. 10:34), and they insist that the Lord called Himself Son of God in a common-human sense. Such an unfounded insistence is, however, resolved by the Saviour's further words in which it is clear that He calls Himself Son of God in a completely exceptional sense: "If He called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; how do you say of Him Whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, `you blaspheme,' because I said I am the Son of God?" (Jn. 10:35-36).
In justification of their heresy, the Arians quote Christ's words: "My Father is greater than I" (Jn. 14:28). The Orthodox quite justifiably respond to them that the Lord said this about His human nature. And if anyone would desire to doubt such an interpretation, this doubt will be resolved in a subsequent reading of Christ's discourse. This part of the farewell conversation, from the beginning to the fifteenth chapter, is presented to comfort the disciples in the impending separation and to reconcile them with the awaited humiliation of Christ. The Lord instils in them that His forthcoming betrayal is not an ordinary execution of a defenceless person by a mighty government, but a voluntary return of the Heavenly Envoy from the vale of this life of humiliation and debasement to the glory of the heavenly Father. "Let not your heart be confused," said the Lord, "You believe in God, believe also in Me... I go to prepare a place for you... I shall come again and take you to myself...I will not leave you orphans, I shall come to you." Nevertheless, His disciples were not reconciled. Thomas, Philip and Jude asked Him questions which demonstrated their own unrequited grief over the impending separation and humiliation of the Teacher. Again He comforted them with words of love: "Let not your hearts be confused, do not be afraid. You heard what I told you: I go away from you and will come to you again. If you would have loved Me," continues the Lord (that is, if you could understand what pertains to My glory, then you would understand that it is not humiliation which awaits Me in My death according to the flesh C in the death of what you see in MeC for in dying according to the flesh, I return to the Father Who is greater than I in this human nature of Mine), "if you would have loved Me, you would have rejoiced that I said, `I am going to the Father, for My Father is greater than I" (Jn. 14:28). In comforting His disciples about the forthcoming crucifixion and death in His human nature, could the Lord have spoken of His immortal Divinity in such words? For, even without that, He had just confessed to them His Divinity and consubstantiality with the Father: "Whoever loves Me, observes My words: and My Father will love him and We will come to him and build an abode in him" (14:23); and a little earlier: "Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father; and how, then, do you say, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me?" (14:9-10). Here is a direct indication of the complete equality of Father and Son.
Those cited words about the dwelling of the Father and Son in the heart of a believer, and also many subsequent words of the Lord indicating that believers will come close and even enter into this unity of Father and Son, will explain the perplexity of Mohammedans over the words: "I will go up to My Father and your Father and to My God and your God," (Jn. 20:17). There is absolutely no indication here of inequality of Father and Son, but only a reminder of the Lord's farewell words about the participation of all believers in the glory of the Father and Son, a reminder that they are already not Christ's slaves but His friends (Jn. 15:15), and especially a reminder of the farewell words: "and the glory which You gave Me, I give to them, that they may be one, as We are One: I in them and You in Me, that they may be made perfect in one" (17:12-23). "Father, I will that they also whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which You have given Me: for You loved Me before the creation of the world" (v. 24).
It is into this glory that the Lord enters upon His ascension, and in His words to Mary of Magdala He attests that His friends now become as near to His Father as He promised them, that their new Grace-filled relationship to God is now approaching, that relationship which is found between personal human nature and God, that by His human nature they are now His brothers: "go to My brothers and tell them..." (20:17). But further in this chapter of the Gospel, the Lord receives the confession of one of His brothers in the flesh: "My Lord and my God!" and approves it by answering, "Thou hast believed because thou hast seen Me; blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe" (20:28-29). With these words He blesses those of us who believe in Him as true God.
Such is our final answer to the given question. We have examined it through the Gospel history of the earthly life of Jesus Christ and reconciled the supposed contradictions. The Lord did confess Himself as true God, but in such a manner that His disciples might assimilate this? truth gradually, having first come to love the holiness of His teachings and having come to reverence His humiliation and sufferings and, finally, having come to know His resurrection.
[1].? "No man shall see Me and live," God says. Yet, it was the Son, Christ, Who spoke with Moses here. Yet, He spoke on Sinai in all His glory and power, His identity clearly known. In the Incarnation, He could be seen by shielding people from the full knowledge of this identity. See also John 1:18.