John 14:10

"Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works."

This verse continues our theme of looking at difficult verses related to the deity of Christ. This is an excellent verse in which Jesus says He is God.

"I am in the Father, and the Father in Me" describes the closeness the Father and the Son. They are separate Persons. But, They are one God.

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three persons in one God. We call it the Trinity. William MacDonald writes in the Believer's Bible Commentary: "We should not be discouraged if we cannot understand this. No mortal mind will ever understand the Godhead. We must give God credit for knowing things we can never know. If we fully understood Him, we would be as great as He!"

But we are not.

Notice that in this verse Jesus starts by saying that He is in the Father. We know the Father is in heaven. That means that while Jesus was here on earth, he was also in heaven IN THE FATHER.

Who can be both here and in heaven at the same time? Only God.

Who can be, as this verse says, IN GOD THE FATHER? Only God can be in God. No man can be in God.

As we would expect, since there is only one God, while Jesus was in the Father, the Father was also in Jesus. It's the complete intermingling closeness of the three persons in one God.

Then Jesus says that he does not speak on his own, he says what the Father wants him to say.

Jesus is the perfect example of what we should be, fully obedient to God and a servant of God.

Did Jesus have the knowledge and ability to speak on His own? Yes. And he would have said the exact same thing as he did say. Since he is God, and is one with God as described in this verse. If he spoke on his own he still would be saying what the Father wanted him to say. His purpose in not speaking on his own initiative is to show us how to perfectly obey God.--it has nothing to do with knowing what to say.

Did Jesus have the power and ability to do whatever he wanted on his own? Yes.

But, instead he chose to be an example we could follow. He demonstrated to us what perfect obedience to God looks like.