If there ever was an occasion on which God should have disclosed his unity or his plurality, it was certainly then when Moses ventured to demand the credentials of his mission. God used singular verbs whenever referring to himself. He said: I am, not we are. He calls himself by the singular noun Jehovah, which, unlike the plural Elohim, is applied only to the one true God. This name Jehovah occurs one hundred and sixty times in Genesis alone.[A]
[Footnote A: J. Corluy S. J. "Spicilegium," Volume 1. Com. 2. See also Smith's Bible Dictionary, word God.]
II. The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are one and the same identical Divine Essence or Being.
A. "I and the Father are one" (John 10-30). Christ asserts his physical, not merely moral, unity with the Father.
"My sheep hear my voice * * * and I give them everlasting life; and they shall not perish forever, and no man shall pluck them out of my hand."
The following argument by which Christ proves that no man shall pluck his sheep from his hand, proves his consubstantiality, or the unity of his nature or essence with his Father's:
My Father who gave me the sheep is greater than all men or creatures, (v. 29) and therefore no one can snatch the sheep or aught else from his hand. (Supreme or almighty power is here predicated of the Father.)
Now, I and the Father are one (thing, one being) v. 30. (Therefore, no one can snatch the sheep or aught else from my hand.)
To perceive the full meaning and strength of Jesus' argument, one must read and understand the original text of St. John's Gospel, that is, the Greek; or the Latin translation: Ego et Pater unum sumus.
If Christ had meant one in mind or one morally and not substantially, he would have used the masculine gender, Greek eis, (unus)—and not the neuter en, (unum)—as he did. No better interpreters of our Lord's meaning can be found than his own hearers. Had he simply declared his moral union with the Father, the Jews would not have taken up stones in protest against his making himself God, and asserting his identity with the Father. Far from retracting his statement or correcting the Jews' impression, Jesus insists that as he is the Son of God, he has far more right to declare himself God than the Scripture had to call mere human judges gods, and he corroborates his affirmation of his physical unity with his Father by saying: "The Father is in me, and I am in the Father," which evidently signifies the same as verse 30: I and the Father are one and the same individual being, the One God.