John 10:30 has often been used to support the doctrine of modalism. The text in the KJV reads:
I and my Father are one.
The Greek is:
εγω και ο πατηρ εν εσμεν
A more literal translation would be:
I and the Father one we are.
Typically, those who support a form of Modalism argue that this text teaches that the person of the Father is the same person as Jesus. However, the “one” in this verse (εν) is neuter, not masculine (εἷς), so shared “personhood” (or “being-hood,” if a Trinitarian opts to use this verse) is not in view here; instead, the “oneness” or “unity” in view is the shared unity of the Father and the Son with respect to the salvation of God’s people, as per the context (e.g., vv.27-29).
The NET commentary for this verse offers a surprisingly weak argument in favour of Trinitarianism from this verse:
The phrase ἕν ἐσμεν (hen esmen) is a significant assertion with trinitarian implications. ἕν is neuter, not masculine, so the assertion is not that Jesus and the Father are one person, but one "thing." Identity of the two persons is not what is asserted, but essential unity (unity of essence).
It is nothing short of desperation to argue that the later concept of three persons in one being, a la creedal Trinitarianism, is in view in this verse. If this is “proven” by the use of the neuter εν, such proves too much. How so? In John 17:21-22, we read the following:
That they all may be one (εν), as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one (εν) in us: that the word may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one (εν), even as we are one (εν).
All the instances of “one” in this text are the neuter εν. Taking the approach of the NET to the use of εν in John 10:30, this “proves” that Christians are part of the “tri-une” being of God through use of the neuter(!) Of course, such is utter nonsense, but such are the lengths Trinitarians have to go to in order to uphold a man-made dogma.
John 14:10-11 reads as follows:
Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doesth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.
Ron Rhodes and Marian Bodine, on p. 235 of their book, Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Mormons, wrote the following as a question Evangelicals should ask their LDS friends:
·
Would you please read aloud from John 14:10-11?
·
If the Father has a physical body of flesh and
bones, as the Mormon Church claims, then how is it possible for the Father to
dwell within Jesus? (p 235)
The language of John 14:10-11 is clearly figurative, rather than metaphysical, as is apparent from a number of clues. The first is that Christ was a Jew in Israel talking to other Jews--the Jews of that region were not Hellenised and accepted such later concepts that became part-and-parcel of Trinitarian presuppositions, which Rhodes and Bodine uncritically accept in their volume. As a result, He and His audience would eschew such metaphysical thinking and language which Rhodes and others with to import into this pericope. Also, note that verse 10 has Jesus speaking of His own initiative, implying that He has His own will, and is a separate person in the full sense of that term.
Furthermore, note the clue in v. 12 where Jesus states that He will go to the Father. This passage clearly indicates that the Father is in another physical location, to which Christ will go. Therefore, the statement that the Father is "in" Christ and that Christ is "in" the Father, couched in the present tense in the Greek, is purely figurative; it was not certainly not literal in any metaphysical sense.
