When Jesus’ public ministry began, his personal self-consciousness confirmed that God was at work in and through him. For though he did speak of “pleasing” the Father (Jn 8:29) and “obeying” him (Jn 15:10), of doing his will and finishing his work (e.g., Jn 4:34; 6:38–39; 17:4; 19:30), yet this surrender was entirely voluntary, so that his will and the Father’s were always in perfect harmony. More than that, according to John he spoke of a mutual “indwelling,” he in the Father and the Father in him, even of a “union” between them (e.g., Jn 14:11; 17:21–23; 10:30).
This conviction that Father and Son cannot be separated, especially when we are thinking about the atonement, since the Father was taking action through the Son, comes to its fullest expression in some of Paul’s great statements about reconciliation. For example, “all this is from God” (referring to the work of the new creation, 2 Cor 5:17–18), who “reconciled us to himself through Christ” and “was reconciling the world to himself in Christ” (2 Cor 5:18–19). It does not seem to matter much where, in translating the Greek, we place the expressions “through Christ” and “in Christ.” What matters is that God and Christ were together active in the work of reconciliation, indeed that it was in and through Christ that God was effecting the reconciliation.
Stott, J. R. W. (2006). The Cross of Christ (pp. 156–157). Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books.
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