To draw a wide line of separation between the Father and *he Son, as some do, and to represent the Father as an angry Being whom the Sou appeases, is very poor theology, and the highroad to Tritheism. The true doctrine is that the Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is one, and that in the unity of the Godhead there are three Persons, and yet that there is such entire unity between the Persons, that He who believes in the Son believes also in the Father.
Zwingle thinks the latent idea is, " Do not think it is a small and insignificant thing to believe on Me. To believe on Me is the same thing as believing on God the Father, and to know Me is to know the Father."
Bucer seems to think that the address in this verse was meant to encourage those who believed Christ to be the Messiah, but were afraid of confessing Him, to come forward boldly, and ac- knowledge their belief.
Poole says, that in like manner God says to Samuel, " They have not rejected thee, but have rejected Me," meaning not thee alone. (1 Sam. viii. 7.)
45.— [And he...seeth me seeth him that sent me.~\ This deep and mysterious verse proclaims even more distinctly than the last verse the unity of the Father and the Son. It cannot mean that any one who saw Christ with his bodily eyes, did, in so seeing, behold the First Person in the Trinity. Such beholding we are distinctly told is impossible. He is one " whom no man hath seen or can see." (1 Tim. vi. 16.) What our Lord seems to mean is this : "He that seeth Me seeth not Me only, as an ordinary man or a Prophet, like John the Baptist. In seeing Me he beholds one who is one with the Father, the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His Person." (Heb. i. 3.) Of course our Lord did not literally mean, " He that sees Me does not see Me." But He meant, " He that sees Me sees not only Me, but through Me and by Me he sees Him that sent Me, for we cannot be divided."
The divinity of Jesus Christ seems incontrovertibly proved by this verse and the preceding one. If to believe in Christ is to believe in the Father, and to see Christ is to see the Father, then Jesus Christ must be equal with the Father, — very and eternal God.
The supposition of some, that the first " seeth " in this verse means nothing more than " seeth by faith," appears rather in- credible. At this rate the verse would be only a repetition of the one preceding it. I prefer the idea that " seeth " means liter- ally, " Seeth with his bodily eyes." Yet Bengel says that " seeth " refers to that vision which faith accompanies, and com- pares it to John vi. 40.
The object our Lord had in view in this and the preceding verse appears to have been twofold. It was partly to proclaim