Pray to Begin
Ask: ask the Holy Spirit to help you hear Jesus’ claim today without flinching, and to believe it.
Give thanks: Jesus never backs down from being who He is. He is God’s own Son, and He proves it.
Bring: any doubt you carry about who Jesus really is. Bring it honestly today.
Today’s Passage: John 10:22–39
It is winter in Jerusalem. Jesus walks in the temple courts. It is the Feast of Dedication, a holiday that remembers when God’s people got their temple back. A crowd surrounds Him with one blunt question: are You the Christ? Jesus answers with His works, and with one short, staggering claim.
As you read, hold this: Accused of claiming to be God, Jesus does not deny it. He defends it.
Context The Feast of Dedication and Solomon's Colonnade
The Feast of Dedication is also called Hanukkah. About 160 years before this day, a foreign king took over the temple. He made it defiled: unclean, unfit for worship. God’s people took it back and gave it to God again. This feast remembers that rescue. Solomon’s Colonnade was a walkway along the temple with a stone roof, held up by pillars. People gathered there to get out of the winter wind. The crowd’s question sounds impatient, but Jesus has already answered plainly. Back in chapter 8, He told them, “before Abraham was born, I am.” Now they want it even plainer. He gives it to them.
John 10:22–30 (BSB)
²² At that time the Feast of Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, ²³ and Jesus was walking in the temple courts in Solomon’s Colonnade. ²⁴ So the Jews gathered around Him and demanded, “How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.” ²⁵ “I already told you,” Jesus replied, “but you did not believe. The works I do in My Father’s name testify on My behalf. ²⁶ But because you are not My sheep, you refuse to believe. ²⁷ My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. ²⁸ I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of My hand. ²⁹ My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all. No one can snatch them out of My Father’s hand. ³⁰ I and the Father are one.”
Word study "One": hen (John 10:30)
Greek: ἕν (hen), pronounced hen. Strong’s G1520.
This word is neuter. It does not mean “one person.” It means one thing: one nature, one being. Jesus is not saying He and the Father are the same person. He is saying They share the same divine nature.
They ask for a plain answer. Jesus gives one plainer than they expected.
He points first to His works. Healing. Raising the dead. Feeding crowds. Teaching with an authority no one else has. Then He points to His sheep. He knows them. He keeps them safe. No one can steal them out of His hand, and no one can steal them out of the Father’s hand either.
Then comes the claim: I and the Father are one. Not one in wish only. Not one team with two members. One in nature, hen. Jesus is saying, in the plainest words He can find, that He shares God’s own being.
John 10:31–33 (BSB)
³¹ At this, the Jews again picked up stones to stone Him. ³² But Jesus responded, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone Me?” ³³ “We are not stoning You for any good work,” said the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because You, who are a man, make Yourself out to be God.”
The crowd does not misunderstand Jesus. They understand Him exactly. That is why they reach for stones. In their Law, blasphemy means claiming to be God when you are only a man. It is the worst insult you can give God. They say the charge out loud, so no one can miss what Jesus just claimed. He was not speaking in riddles. He was claiming to be God.
John 10:34–39 (BSB)
³⁴ Jesus replied, “Is it not written in your Law: ‘I have said you are gods’? ³⁵ If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and the Scripture cannot be broken— ³⁶ then what about the One whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world? How then can you accuse Me of blasphemy for stating that I am the Son of God? ³⁷ If I am not doing the works of My Father, then do not believe Me. ³⁸ But if I am doing them, even though you do not believe Me, believe the works themselves, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I am in the Father.” ³⁹ At this, they tried again to seize Him, but He escaped their grasp.
Jesus does not back away from the charge. He defends it, straight from their own Scriptures. In Psalm 82, God calls human judges “gods.” They carried His authority on earth. So Jesus asks a question back. If Scripture can call mere judges “gods,” why is it blasphemy when God’s own Son says He is God’s Son?
Then He points back to His works one more time. Believe the works, He says, even if you cannot yet believe His words. Let what He does show you who He is: the Father in Him, and He in the Father.
The crowd tries to seize Him again. Jesus simply walks away. His hour has not yet come. No stone falls before God’s own time.
Study notes The exact likeness of the Father
- Jesus does not correct their charge. He proves it. He never says, “You misunderstood Me.” He answers as if they understood Him exactly.
- This is not a new claim. John 1 already said the Word was God. John 8 already heard Jesus say, “before Abraham was born, I am.” Here, under threat of stoning, He says it again and will not take it back.
"The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His nature, upholding all things by His powerful word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high." Hebrews 1:3 (BSB)
Personal Application
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Jesus never softened His claim, even with stones raised against Him. Where does the truth about Jesus cost you something to say out loud?
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Jesus points to His works to back up His words. Do your own words and actions agree, or do they pull apart?
Pray to Close
The central truth: Jesus is not confused about who He is. He is God’s own Son, one in nature with the Father, and He will not deny it.
Ask: for faith that takes Jesus at His word, even the hardest parts.
Confess: any moment you have stayed quiet about who Jesus really is.
Give thanks: that Jesus never backed down, not even facing stones, so we could know exactly who He is.
Decision of the day
Today’s decision: I will say one true thing about who Jesus is, out loud, to at least one person today.
Worship for Today
This I Believe (The Creed) · Hillsong Worship
This song puts the church’s oldest confession to music: Jesus is fully God and fully man, and He rose again. It does not hedge on the claim Jesus makes today in the temple courts. Sing it as your own answer to the crowd’s question: yes, He is the Christ, and He has told us plainly.
Listen: