He grokked it. and became it.... one. I and the father...
OK. I know that's your line, but I have to say it's really not what John says. For John, it's pretty emphatic He
is it personified, not a person that grokked, became, whatever.
He didn't say "My Father" He included all of us...
Sorry Wil, but you couldn't be more wrong. He said "My Father",
exclusively, more than 50 times.
The
one and only time Jesus says "Our Father" is when He instructs the disciples how to pray, and only in Matthew. In Luke, He simply says "Father". No Jew would assume that by saying 'our Father' means paternity implied.
The seven petitions contained in the 'Our Father' are prayers of the community, not the prayer of Christ. When Christ prays, He speaks personally, not collectively as in the 'Our Father'.
In John, for example, He prays: "And the glory which thou hast given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, as we also are one." (17:22) and, more pointedly, "And now I am not in the world, and these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep them in
thy name whom thou has given
me; that
they may be one, as we also are." (17:11).
The traditional Christian tradition teaches that the 'one-ness' of which Our Lord speaks is a 'one-ness'
in Christ.
But ... and it's a big but ... the inclusion of the words 'as we also' signifies that the one-ness He enjoys with the Father is other and distinct to the one-ness He prays for the community.
So these texts, treated as you treat them, undoes your argument. The one-ness He prays for us is
like the one-ness of Father and Son, but it is not the
same one-ness: His, and 'also' ours.
The orthodox teaching is founded on the
context of the prayer, rather than simply the
words, and again on the total weave of the New Testament Scriptures. Paul is emphatic on the one-ness of all
in Christ, not Christ distributed out among the community.
Again, as Christ said "No man cometh to the Father, but by me" (John 14:6), so we can only know the Father by Christ, and can only know Christ by the Holy Spirit (John 15:26) – the ruach or pneuma, the breathe of God in the soul.
When speaking of Himself however, He says "my Father" – not 'our' or 'your' or 'the' – but distinctly "my Father". If you read the texts in context, its inescapable. This is what I'm getting at. take a line out of context and you can construe it almost any way you like.
"All things are delivered to me by my Father. And no one knoweth the Son, but the Father: neither doth any one know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal him." Matthew 11:7
Did John write the word "only"?
Yes. Five times, i think. John is explicit in its declaration that Jesus Christ
alone is the
only begotten Son of God. And not that Jesus was someone who 'grokked' or 'became' ...