The objection
In John 17,3 Jesus calls the Father the “only true God” and distinguishes himself from him. If this designation is exclusive, surely Jesus cannot himself be true God.
1. The Father is the only true God
Jesus addresses the Father. This must not be evaded by retrospectively replacing “you” with “the Trinity.” The Father is true God; there is no second true God beside this God. It does not yet follow, however, that the Son must be a nondivine reality separated from this God. Precisely this premise would first have to be proved by the objection.
The exclusivity is directed against other gods. Whether the Son belongs to those alleged other gods or to the one divine reality is decided by the Gospel's context. The Trinitarian answer therefore takes “only” fully seriously.[1]
2. Two verses later comes Jesus' glory before the world
In John 17,5 Jesus asks for the glory he had with the Father before the world existed. The sentence speaks of actual possession in a relationship: I had glory with you. It does not merely say that God once planned to glorify a human. John 17,24 adds the Father's love for the Son before the world.
Both sentences belong to the same prayer as verse 3. A merely human Messiah who existed before his birth only as a thought in God's plan is no adequate explanation for this language. John has already introduced personal preexistence in 1,1–3: The Word was with God and was God.
3. John distinguishes persons without separating deity
John 20,28 has Thomas address the risen Jesus as his Lord and God. Jesus does not rebuke him but speaks about his faith. Anyone reading John 17,3 as though the evangelist fundamentally excluded Jesus from true deity sets John against his own explicit statement.
John 5,23, too, is decisive for the question of allegedly inferior deity: All are to honor the Son as they honor the Father. Within the Gospel's strictly monotheistic framework, the Son is no second object of a lesser form of worship of God. His honor belongs to the Father's honor.
4. Knowing them together is itself an indication
John 17,3 describes eternal life as knowing the Father and Jesus Christ whom he sent. The Son is included in this saving knowledge of God. This alone would not yet be a complete doctrine of the Trinity; together with his glory before the world, his position as Creator and Thomas's confession, however, a coherent whole emerges.[1]
The distinction between sender and sent one explains why Jesus is not the Father. It does not explain why he should not be God. Sending is a relationship between persons, not an automatic classification of the one sent as a creature. The objection confuses the two. The prayer confesses the one true God while revealing the eternal fellowship of Father and Son.
Biblical texts in context
Sources and further study
- John M. Frame, The Doctrine of GodCh. 28, objection concerning John 17,3, pp. 683–684.
- Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian FaithCh. 8, “The Son’s Eternal Preexistence,” pp. 230–232.