John's Note on the Trinity

There is much richness in the original Hebrew and Greek languages of the Bible. Just as important as the words is the grammar. The following paragraph on the Second person of the trinity is from L.T. Jeyachandran. It was sent out from RZIM in a "Slice of Infinity (slice@sliceofinfinity.org) Thu 8/07/08

"Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (John14:8-9). This astounding claim should alert us to several factors of which we are often not quite aware. In John's Gospel, we consistently see the unfolding of the mystery of Incarnation. There is a unity between the Father and the Son that we cannot ignore. In chapter 10, John records Jesus proclaiming his oneness with the Father. He uses the neuter gender in the Greek language, implying oneness of substance or essence, and emphatically not oneness of Person. (If he had wanted to mean oneness of Person, he would have used the masculine gender.) This is fundamentally important but is not often heard. Simply put, Jesus says that he is of one essence with the Father, but is not the same Person. As a result, we see a continuing invitation from Jesus to "come and see" his actual humanity, the uniqueness of Christ, the person of God incarnate.