“I and the Father Are One”: Psalm 82, John 10, and What Jesus Was Really Claiming
Intro
When Jesus quoted Psalm 82 in John 10, he was not backing away from his claim to be God. He was reinforcing it. This article argues that Jesus’s appeal to Psalm 82 is not an attempt to justify calling himself a “son of God,” but a deliberate move to intensify his claim that he shares the very identity of God. By contrasting himself with the condemned “sons of the Most High” in Psalm 82, Jesus explicitly identifies himself with the God who stands in judgment and inherits the nations. The point of the passage is simple and explosive: Jesus is not one son among many. He is the Son of God, one with the Father.
1. Start Where the Text Starts: An Accusation of Blasphemy
Everything in John 10 turns on one sentence:
“I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30)
Jesus says this before Psalm 82 enters the conversation. And the response is immediate.
They pick up stones.
When Jesus asks why, the answer is unmistakable:
“For blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.” (John 10:33)
This matters. First-century Jews were not confused about metaphorical or representative language. Kings, judges, angels, and Israel itself could be called “sons” in certain senses. None of that triggered an execution attempt.
This did.
So the context is fixed from the start. Jesus is standing accused of claiming equality with God. Psalm 82 is introduced under that accusation, not before it. That means Psalm 82 cannot be doing damage control. It has to be doing something else.
For clarity, the full passage must be heard.
John 10:22–39 (World English Bible)
22 It was the Feast of the Dedication at Jerusalem. 23 It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in Solomon’s porch.
24 The Jews therefore came around him and said to him, “How long will you hold us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you don’t believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name, these testify about me. 26 But you don’t believe, because you are not of my sheep, as I told you. 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give eternal life to them. They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.
31 The Jews took up stones again to stone him.
32 Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of those works do you stone me?”
33 The Jews answered him, “For a good work we don’t stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”
34 Jesus answered them, “Isn’t it written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’? 35 If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture can’t be broken), 36 do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You blaspheme,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?
37 If I don’t do the works of my Father, don’t believe me. 38 But if I do them, though you don’t believe me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.”
39 Therefore they sought again to seize him, and he went out of their hand.
2. Psalm 82: God on One Side, Failed “Sons” on the Other
Before interpreting Jesus’s use of Psalm 82, the psalm itself has to be heard.
Psalm 82 (World English Bible)
1 God presides in the great assembly. He judges among the gods.
2 “How long will you judge unjustly, and show partiality to the wicked?” Selah.
3 “Defend the weak, the poor, and the fatherless. Maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.
4 Rescue the weak and needy. Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.”
5 They don’t know, neither do they understand. They walk back and forth in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken.
6 I said, “You are gods, all of you are sons of the Most High.
7 Nevertheless you shall die like men, and fall like one of the rulers.”
8 Arise, God, judge the earth, for you inherit all of the nations.
Psalm 82 has two clear sides.
On one side: “God presides in the great assembly. He judges among the gods.”
On the other side: “I said, ‘You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you.’ Nevertheless, you shall die like men.”
This is not a celebration of shared divinity. It is an indictment.
These “sons of the Most High” are rulers over God’s people who received God’s word and failed to act justly. They judged unjustly. They showed partiality to the wicked. They did not defend the weak or maintain the rights of the oppressed. Because they failed, they lose their authority. They die like men.
The psalm ends by drawing the line as sharply as possible:
“Arise, God, judge the earth, for you inherit all the nations.”
The “sons” fail. God alone inherits.
That contrast is the key.
3. What Jesus Actually Does with Psalm 82
Now return to John 10.
Jesus quotes Psalm 82 and adds a critical phrase:
“If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came...” (John 10:35)
That clause tells us exactly who the Psalm 82 figures are: the rulers and judges of Israel, those entrusted with divine revelation to govern God’s covenant people. These are not pagan kings or Gentile authorities. They are those who stood in God’s stead among God’s people, commissioned with the divine word to execute justice.
And then Jesus draws the contrast:
“Do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You blaspheme,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?” (John 10:36)
This is not Jesus placing himself in the same category. It is Jesus saying:
They received the word of God. He is the Word of God.
They were commissioned to represent God among the people. He is God among the people.
They had delegated authority, which they abused. He has essential authority, which he exercises perfectly.
They are judged and condemned. He judges and gives eternal life.
They die like men. He holds his sheep so that no one snatches them from his hand.
The argument becomes: “You are scandalized that I claim divine identity? Your own Scripture applies divine titles to Israel’s failed rulers who merely received the word. How much more does the one who is the Word, whom the Father sanctified and sent, possess what they only borrowed?”
And then Jesus hammers the point again:
“The Father is in me, and I in the Father.” (John 10:38)
Which is simply another way of saying:
“I and the Father are one.”
4. The Accusers Understood Perfectly
The charge against Jesus is explicit: “Because you, being a man, make yourself God.”
This is not confusion. It is recognition.
They do not think Jesus is claiming to be a second God alongside the Father. They understand exactly what he is claiming: to be the one God, YHWH himself. A claim to be another god would be idolatry or madness. Blasphemy, in this specific sense, is claiming to be the God of Israel.
Their error is not misunderstanding the claim. Their error is refusing to believe it is true.
And the names themselves make the claim. Matthew brackets Jesus with both.
The angel announces: “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” And Matthew immediately adds: “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel’ (which means, God with us)” (Matthew 1:21–23).
Two names. One identity.
Yeshua: YHWH saves. Immanuel: God with us.
Not “YHWH will send someone to save.” YHWH saves. Not “God’s representative with us.” Not “a sign that God is with us.” God. With us.
The angel does not say “for he will announce salvation” or “for he will mediate salvation.” He will save. That is YHWH’s work. The names say so.
The crowd in Solomon’s porch is standing in front of Immanuel, who bears the name Yeshua, who has just said “I and the Father are one,” and who is claiming to do what only YHWH does: give eternal life, hold God’s people secure, judge. The names, the claim, and the works all converge on the same point.
“I and the Father are one.”
Jesus exposes the inconsistency: if derivative authority can bear divine language, how can it be blasphemy for the one whom the Father sanctified and sent, the one who is the Word, bearing the name that declares YHWH saves, to claim what is his by nature?
The argument is not: “The standard for divine language is low, so I qualify.”
The argument is: “You apply divine language to condemned recipients of revelation, yet you balk when the source of that revelation claims his own identity?”
And Jesus does not retreat. He reasserts: “The Father is in me, and I in the Father.”
They try to arrest him again.
They understood him perfectly. They simply refused to believe that YHWH was standing in front of them, in flesh, bearing the names that declared it.
5. The God of Psalm 82 Is the Triune God
“I and the Father are one.”
This is the claim. Everything else in John 10:22–39 responds to it, elaborates it, or confirms it. The stones, the accusation, the psalm citation, the restatement in verse 38. All of it flows from this single declaration.
Christian theology does not confess that God became Triune at the Incarnation. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are eternally one God. This means every Old Testament reference to the one true God is a reference to the Triune God, including the Son.
When Psalm 82:1 says “God presides in the great assembly,” the God who presides is the God Jesus claims unity with. “I and the Father are one.” Not will be one. Not am becoming one. Are one. Present tense. Eternal reality.
Jesus is not citing a psalm about someone else. He is citing a psalm about himself.
“I and the Father are one.”
The God who stands in judgment in Psalm 82:1 is the same God who gives eternal life in John 10:28. The God who condemns the corrupt “gods” in Psalm 82:6–7 is the same God who holds his sheep so that no one can snatch them from his hand. The God who inherits all nations in Psalm 82:8 is the same God who will draw all people to himself.
This is not theological inference drawn from later creedal development. It is the necessary consequence of what Jesus himself claims. “I and the Father are one.” If that statement is true, then the Son was present and active in every divine action recorded in the Old Testament. The God who spoke to Moses, who delivered Israel, who judged the nations, who made covenant with Abraham, is the Triune God. Jesus is not a later addition to that identity. He is eternally within it.
Not two Gods. One. The Son does not compete with the Father for the divine name. He shares it. The unity Jesus claims is not partnership, not alliance, not harmony of purpose. It is identity. One God. Father, Son, Spirit.
“I and the Father are one.”
That is the claim. Psalm 82 does not soften it. Psalm 82 sharpens it. The God who judges in that psalm is the God who stands before them in Solomon’s porch, claiming what is his by eternal right.
6. Jesus as the Interpretive Key of Scripture
The Psalm 82 citation is not an isolated rhetorical move. It reflects Jesus’s consistent hermeneutical pattern throughout his ministry. Jesus does not position himself as an interpreter of the Old Testament, fitting himself into its pre-established categories. He positions himself as the one the Old Testament was always about. The Scriptures are reframed in light of him, not the other way around.
“You have heard that it was said... but I say to you” (Matthew 5:21–22, 27–28, 31–32, 33–34, 38–39, 43–44). Jesus does not present himself as one teacher among many, offering his interpretation of Moses. He speaks with an authority that supersedes Moses. The Law is read in light of the Lawgiver who now stands before them.
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is these that testify about me” (John 5:39). The Scriptures are not the destination. Jesus is. The texts are witnesses. He is the one witnessed to.
“Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). Abraham’s existence is contextualized by Jesus’s eternal presence, not the other way around. The patriarch is not the fixed point. Jesus is.
His post-resurrection teaching confirms this hermeneutic explicitly: “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44). Not “everything written that I happen to fulfill.” Everything written about me. The Law, the Prophets, the Psalms. The entire Hebrew canon. All of it is about him.
“Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45).
The disciples had the same texts their whole lives. They did not lack information. They lacked the interpretive key. Jesus is the interpretive key. Once he opens their minds, the Scriptures make sense in a way they could not before.
“I and the Father are one.”
That claim is not shaped by Psalm 82. Psalm 82 is a text illuminated by that claim. The deflationary readings get this backwards. They assume the Old Testament provides the fixed framework into which Jesus must fit himself. But Jesus consistently does the opposite. He is the fixed point. The Old Testament is read in light of him.
7. The Word of God Interprets the Word of God
There is an old hermeneutical principle: the Word of God interprets the Word of God. At the textual level, this means Scripture interprets Scripture, clearer passages illuminating obscure ones.
But if Jesus is the Word of God (John 1:1), the principle goes deeper.
The Word of God interprets the Word of God because the living Word is the key to the written Word. The Scriptures do not interpret themselves in a vacuum. They are interpreted by the one they testify to.
“Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”
He did not hand them a better commentary. He revealed himself. And suddenly the texts made sense.
This is what the crowd in Solomon’s porch is missing. They have the Scriptures. They know Psalm 82. But they do not have the interpretive key standing in front of them, so they cannot see what the text is actually about. They read the psalm as a standalone legal precedent for divine language applied to humans. Jesus reads it as testimony about the God he is one with.
The Word of God interprets the Word of God. The living Word stands before them, and they do not recognize him.
“I and the Father are one.”
8. The Takeaway
So when Jesus quotes Psalm 82, he is not saying:
“See, the Bible uses divine language loosely, so calm down.”
He is saying:
“Your own Scripture condemns rulers who only borrowed divine authority. I am not borrowing anything. I stand where God stands. I judge. I give life. I inherit.”
Or, in his own words:
“I and the Father are one.”
That is not a claim he walks back. It is not a claim Psalm 82 softens. It is the fixed point around which the entire passage turns. The accusation of blasphemy, the citation of Scripture, the reassertion of mutual indwelling, the renewed attempt to arrest him. All of it flows from this single, unretracted, unqualified declaration of divine identity.
The God of Psalm 82 is the Triune God. Jesus is the eternal Son. When he stands in Solomon’s porch and says “I and the Father are one,” he is not reaching for something beyond his grasp. He is stating what has always been true, what the Scriptures have always testified, what his works have always demonstrated.
The accusers did not misunderstand him. They understood him perfectly. They simply refused to believe.
Soli Deo Gloria