---
title: John 14:10
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-14-10/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-14-10.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: John 14:10
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# John 14:10

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words I say to you, I do not speak on My own. Instead, it is the Father dwelling in Me, performing His works.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "Do you not believe that I am in union with the Father and the Father is in union with me? The things I say to you I do not speak of my own originality, but the Father who remains in union with me is doing his works."

## JW Usage

Read as relational unity — Jesus is "in union with" the Father in the same way believers are "in union with" Christ (John 17:21). The language is downgraded from ontological mutual indwelling to a shared- purpose relationship. The Watchtower's NWT itself does the downgrading by inserting "in union with" wherever the Greek says simply "in."

## Protestant Usage

The Greek preposition is the simple en — "in." Jesus is "in" the Father, the Father is "in" Jesus. That mutual indwelling — what later theology calls perichoresis — is unique to the persons of the Trinity. Pair John 14:10 with John 10:38 ("the Father is in me, and I am in the Father") and Colossians 2:9 ("all the fullness of the divine quality dwells bodily"). The believer's "abiding in" Christ (John 15) is real and important, but it is not the same kind of mutual indwelling Jesus describes between himself and the Father. Jesus does the works of the Father; the Father does works in and through the Son. That is a unity no creature can claim.

## NWT Issue

Where the Greek reads simply "in the Father" (ἐν τῷ πατρί) and "in me" (ἐν ἐμοί), the NWT renders "in union with the Father" / "in union with me." The phrase "in union with" is a paraphrase consistently inserted across John's gospel and Paul's letters wherever the simple "in [Christ/Father]" formula appears. The cumulative effect is to dissolve the New Testament's mutual-indwelling language into a weaker relational-union vocabulary that fits a JW Christology in which the Father and Son are not ontologically one. The "remains" language at the end of the verse — "the Father who remains in union with me is doing his works" — is the same expansion.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Seeing the Father in Jesus](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/john14-9-seen-the-father.md) — John 14:9 / Hebrews 1:3 / Colossians 2:9 [Deity of Christ]
- [Perichoresis — Three Persons Sharing One Will, Not Three](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/trinity-perichoresis-one-will.md) — Mutual indwelling, not a committee of gods [Deity of Christ]