John 14:10. Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I say unto you I speak not from myself, but the Father abiding in me doeth his works. If what is stated in the first clause of this verse be the fact, the bluntness of Philip's spiritual vision will be proved. It is of this truth, therefore, that Jesus speaks. The statement is that of one great truth with two sides, each of which has its appropriate proof the first, in the ‘words' of Jesus; the second, in the Father's ‘works.' For, as to the first, that Jesus is ‘in the Father,' He is the Word, and words characterize Him. If His words are not ‘from Himself,' He is not from Himself; if they are the Father's, He is ‘in the Father.' As to the second, the Father does not work directly, He works only through the Son; therefore as the Father He can be known only in the Son. Thus the Son is in the Father; He is in no other way: the Father is in the Son; He is the Father in no other way. Hence the proof of the statement to Philip, ‘He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,' is complete. The distinction between ‘words' and ‘works' in this verse thus springs from a point of view wholly different from that which refers the one to the teaching, the other to the miracles, of Jesus; it is connected with the essential qualities of that Son who is the Word, of that God who is the Father. The transition from the ‘words' to the ‘works,' otherwise so inexplicable, is also thus at once explained. This is the only passage of the Gospel in which the verb ‘say' is connected with the ‘words' or with the ‘word' of Jesus. ‘The words that I say unto you' are equivalent to ‘My words.'

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Old Testament