The Nature of Divine Life

 The following is from T. Austin-Sparks' book Discipleship in the School of Christ:

"Look at the Lord Jesus! What was His real consciousness? This was a thing about which He was always speaking, and it was so very evident in His case. He said: 'I and the Father are one' (John 10:30); 'I do always the things that are pleasing to him' (the Father) (John 8:29); 'The works that I do in my Father's name' (John 10:25). Oh, this word 'Father' in John's Gospel!

"The consciousness of Jesus Christ every day was of His union with His Father, the oneness that existed between them: 'As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee' (John 17:21). The consciousness of the Lord Jesus was of the very closest union with God as His Father, and that was because the very life of God was in Him. His life was a God-conscious life; but God-consciousness in the sense of perfect oneness. And that is what it means to have this life.

"Man never had that. Jesus came to bring it in His own person: not to talk about union with God, but to live out a life of union with God and to bring His disciples into the same union. 'I came that they might have life'-- in other words: 'I am come that they may have the same consciousness of God as Father that I have and that they may have the same divine nature in them as I have.' (Not deity, but nature.)"