MARY, OUR MOTHER

SCRIPTURE COMMENTARY #396

And it was the feast of the dedication at Jerusalem: and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple, in Solomon's porch. The Jews therefore came round about him and said to him: "How long dost thou hold our souls in suspense? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly." Jesus answered them: "I speak to you, and you believe not: the works that I do in the name of my Father, they give testimony of me. But you do not believe, because you are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. And I know them: and they follow me. And I give them life everlasting: and they shall not perish for ever. And no man shall pluck them out of my hand. That which my Father hath given me is greater than all: and no one can snatch them out of the hand of my Father. I and the Father are one. The Jews then took up stones to stone him." (John 10:22-31)

OUR LORD'S DIVINITY is proved in several ways in this chapter. It is proved: 1. by His own distinct testimony, 2. by His miracles, 3. by the holiness of His life.

1. Our Lord's own testimony.
He called God His Father: therefore He is the Son of God.
He says: "I give My sheep life everlasting." God alone can give everlasting life: therefore Jesus is God.
He says again: "No man shall pluck My sheep out of My Hand." No one is stronger than he; and therefore He ascribes to Himself a might superhuman or divine.
He says, lastly: "I and the Father are one;" one in power, one in nature. There are two persons, indeed, I and the Father; but only One Being, One God. The same truth of the unity of nature of the Father and the Son is further expressed by the words: "The Father is in Me, and I in the Father." On these words St. Cyril writes thus: "The effect of this unity of the Divine Nature is that the Son is in the Father, and the Father in the Son. Even as the sun is in the ray which proceeds from it, and the ray is in the sun from which it proceeds, so is the Son in the Father and the Father in the Son; and they, being two Divine Persons, are One God, existing for and in one another by the unity of their Divine Nature."
The Jews understood perfectly well that by these words our Lord ascribed to Himself the Divine Power and Nature, or, in other words, that He called Himself the real Son of God. They reproached Him with making Himself God, and wished to stone Him as a blasphemer. Had the Jews understood His words wrongly, He would have said "I am not God," in the same way as St. John the Baptist said "I am not the Christ". Jesus, however, retracted none of His words, but, on the contrary, reproached the Jews for not believing them.

[From 'A Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture' by Bishop Knecht, D.D.]
(1899 Douay-Rheims Bible)