“You speak the truth when you say that you have not seen my Father.” His voice was calm, even gentle, but his eyes were filled with fire. “Neither have you seen me. For if you had seen me, you would likewise have seen my Father, for the Father is in me and I am in the Father. My Father and I are one.”
“Is he speaking of the God of Israel as his father?” A portly Pharisee near the two women had turned to speak with one of his colleagues. “Is that the meaning of his strange utterance?”
“I think so.”
“Blasphemy!” declared the questioner. “He makes himself one with God!”
But Jesus had heard.
“No,” he declared, looking the fat one full in the face. “Only truth. And if you knew me and were willing to live by my teaching, you would know the truth, and the truth would make you free. You would not walk in darkness, but in the light of the world, in the fullness of life.”
“But, Rabbi, we are free. We are children of Abraham. We are not slaves. How can you say that we would be made free? We have never been slaves to any man.”
“Any man who sins is a slave, and no slave is a son of the house; yet if the son of the house sets him free, he is no longer a slave.”
“But we are sons of Abraham. We are no bastards. We are the children of the God of Israel.”
Jesus leveled his forefinger at the protesting Pharisee. “No, you are not the sons of the Father; you are rather sons of the Evil One, for he is the enemy of truth and you likewise are its enemies.” His words were uttered in calmness, but they were emphatic, and his eyes flashed. “You will neither hear the truth nor comprehend it.”