John 10:29-30

“ My Father who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand; 30 I and the Father are one. ”

We might be tempted to find, with Luthardt, a strict syllogism in the thoughts expressed in John 10:29-30. Major: My Father is greater than all (John 10:29). Minor: I and my Father are one (John 10:30). Conclusion: Therefore I shall victoriously defend them against all (John 10:29). But, in general, the reasoning of Jesus tends rather to extend in a spiral manner than to close in upon itself like a circle. This is the case here: the sentiment rises and enlarges. Jesus begins by indicating the absolutely certain guaranty of His right of property in the sheep: God who has given them to Him is more powerful than all the forces of the universe. That any one should be able to wrest them from Him, it is necessary that He should begin by wresting them from God. Then, from this point, His thought rises still higher, even to the idea of the relation in virtue of which everything is common between the Father and the Son. We see in this gradation the filial consciousness displaying itself even till it has reached its utmost depth (John 10:30).

There are four principal readings in John 10:29: 1. That of the T. R. and the eleven less ancient Mjj. (Γ Δ Π etc.): ὅς and μείζων : “The Father who has given them to me is greater than all.” 2. That of B. It. ὅ and μείζον : “ That which the Father has given me is greater than all.” 3. That of A and X: ὅς and μείζον : “The Father who has given them to me is something greater (neuter) than all.” 4. That of א L, ὅ and μείζων, which has really no meaning unless we consent to give a masculine attribute (μείζων) to a neuter subject ὃ (“ what the Father...”). It is the same with the third, in which the subject is masculine and the attribute neuter. How could God be represented as a thing? Finally, one must be singularly blinded by prejudice in favor of the text of B, to prefer, as Tischendorf and Westcott and Hort do, the second reading to the first. Not only do the ordinary documents of the Alexandrian text contradict one another; but the sense which is offered by the reading of the Vatican MS. has not the least internal probability. John would say, according to that reading, that what the Father has given to Jesus is greater than all or everything. It would thus be the flock of Jesus which is here called greater, in the sense of more precious, more excellent than all. But what a strange expression! Believers are of more value than the whole universe, perchance. But the Scriptures never express themselves in this way. They glorify God, not men, even the most faithful men. Moreover, the expressions: no one shall snatch them (John 10:28), no one can snatch them (John 10:29), show that the point in hand is a comparison of power, not between the sheep and their enemies, but between God Himself and these enemies. So Luthardt, Weiss and Keil, in this case, give up the reading against which we are contending. The following is the way in which these variants may have arisen. Offense may have been taken at seeing δέδωκε, has given, without an object, and, through a recalling of the expression in John 6:37; John 6:39 (that which the Father gives me, has given me) and John 17:3 (that which thou hast given me), the copyists may have changed ὅς (who) into ὅ (that which) and made ὁ πατήρ, the Father, the subject of has given. The transformation of μείζων into μεῖζον was the inevitable consequence of the first change. The other readings are mixtures resulting from the embarrassment in which the subsequent copyists found themselves.

The hand, when the Father is in question, represents power rather than possession. God has transmitted this to the Son; but His power remains the safeguard of the property of the Son which is common to Him with the Fathers. Can this guaranty insure believers against the consequences of their own unfaithfulness, as Hengstenberg asserts? The text says nothing like this. The question is of enemies from without, who seek to carry off the sheep, but not of unfaithfulness through which the sheep would themselves cease to be sheep.

According to Weiss, John 10:30 is intended to resolve the apparent contradiction between “guarded by my Father” and “guarded by me.” I do not believe in this relation between John 10:30 and John 10:29, because in what precedes the idea of guarding has been in reality attributed only to God; the end of John 10:28 referred, as we have seen, to the right of property, not to the guarding of the sheep. John 10:30 serves rather to explain why the Father inviolably guards that which belongs to the Son. It is because they have all things common, because they are one. If such is indeed the connection of ideas, John 10:30 cannot refer either to the unity of moral will (the Socinians), or of power (Chrysostom and many others, as Lucke, de Wette, etc.), or even solely to the community of action for the salvation of mankind (Weiss), as it has been described in John 10:19-20, and in the sense in which Paul says, 1 Corinthians 3:9, of himself and Apollos: “He that planteth and he that watereth are one (ἓν εἰσί),” namely, as to the end which they propose to themselves in their work. Here the question is of the relation, not between two workmen, but between Christ as man and God.

And if Jesus had only meant this, why did He not determine more clearly this notion of co-working, as Paul does in the following words (John 10:10), when he comes to speak of his relation to God: We are God's fellow-workers? Why above all give needlessly, and as it were wantonly, an offense to the Jews by employing an expression which appeared to say more than what He in reality meant to say? No, Jesus neither meant: “We desire one and the same thing,” nor “We have the same power,” nor, “We labor in the same work. ” In saying “We are one,” He has affirmed a more profound unity, that which is the inner and hidden basis of all the preceding statements and which Jesus here allows to break forth, as in John 8:58 He had suffered the deepest foundation of His personal existence to show itself. Reuss, being altogether indifferent to the question, since he ascribes the discourses of John to the evangelist, recognizes without hesitation the true meaning of this verse: “The filial relation here, as throughout the whole book, is not only that of love or of the community of will and of action (the ethical relation), but also that of a community of nature and essence (the metaphysical relation).” The term one expresses the consciousness of union, not only moral but essential, with God Himself; the expression we are establishes the difference of persons. As to we, it would be in itself alone a blasphemy in the mouth of a creature; God and I, we (comp. John 14:23)! It has been objected that the expression: to be one, is elsewhere applied to the relation between Jesus and believers, which would prove that it has a purely moral sense. But the union of Jesus and believers is not a mere agreement of will; it is a consubstantial union. The incarnation has established between Jesus and ourselves a relation of nature, and this relation embraces henceforth our entire personality, physical and moral.