By W.R. Selvig

Abbaunveiled@gmail.com

I’m happy to have theological conversations. But there’s a point where debate stops helping and Jesus Himself gives us a cleaner path forward: test the fruit.

He invited it: “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me.”(John 10:37) And again: “Believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.”(John 14:11) He wasn’t afraid of scrutiny; He welcomed it. He also gave us the standard: “You will know them by their fruits.”(Matthew 7:16) If fruit exposes prophets and teachers, then fruit can expose our God-concepts too.

Jesus claims full identification with the Father: “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.”(John 14:9) If that’s true, then the Father’s fruit must look exactly like Jesus’s fruit—no bait-and-switch. And yet Jesus also says something most folks speed past without explanation: “You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form.”(John 5:37) That statement sits uncomfortably beside stories in the Old Testament where Yahweh is both seen and heard. So which way do we go? Jesus tells us: judge by the works.

Let’s lay out the fruit we actually see in Jesus’s life and teachings—then hold it next to the Old Testament portrait of Yahweh.

The Fruit of Jesus (and therefore of the Father)

• The Father is kind. “But love your enemies… For He is kind to the unthankful and evil.”(Luke 6:35)
• Heals, restores, gives life. “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”(John 10:10)
• Forgives freely, even pre-Cross. “Man, your sins are forgiven you.”(Luke 5:20)
• Rejects retaliation. “You have heard… ‘An eye for an eye’… But I tell you not to resist an evil person.”(Matthew 5:38–39)
• Ends oath culture. “Let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.”(Matthew 5:37)
• Touches the untouchable. He cleanses lepers and breaks purity taboos through compassion (Matthew 8:2–3).
• Names the law as theirs, not His Father’s. “It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true.”(John 8:17)

This is the fruit Jesus says to measure. He ties it directly to the Father: if His works aren’t the Father’s works, don’t believe Him. That’s a bold calibration.

The Old Testament Portrait of Yahweh (the Tension)

• Commanded extermination/retaliation. Warfare to the uttermost and lex talionis as a legal norm (e.g., Deuteronomy 20; Exodus 21:24).
• Instituted oath-taking and curse formulas in His name (Deuteronomy 6:13; Numbers 5).
• Purity separation and exclusion as covenant structure (Leviticus).
• Judgments by plague and death as covenant enforcement (Numbers 16; 2 Samuel 6:7).

When we run Jesus’s test—works and fruit—we’re forced to admit the obvious: these two portraits don’t bear the same fruit. Jesus’s fruit is indiscriminate mercy, enemy-love, healing, table fellowship, truthfulness without oaths, and forgiveness without a blood token at the point of encounter. Yahweh’s legal system, by contrast, is oath-bound, retaliation-structured, purity-separating, and judgment-enforcing.

So what do we do? We take Jesus at His word. If He is the exact image of the Father, then the Father’s fruit looks like Jesus—not like a prior legal administration that Jesus repeatedly supersedes: “You have heard that it was said… but I say to you.”(Matthew 5) He identifies the law as “your law” (John 8:17) and locates the source of oath culture: “whatever is more than these is from the evil one.”(Matthew 5:37)

This also explains why He comes not from Levi but from the order of Melchizedek—bread and wine, blessing and communion (Hebrews 7). “For the priesthood being changed, of necessity there is also a change of the law.”(Hebrews 7:12) If the priesthood changes, so does the system that produced the old fruit.

You can argue theology all day. You can volley Hebrew roots, manuscript traditions, councils, and commentaries. But Jesus gave us something irreducibly practical: test the fruit. If a “divine” activity kills, steals, and destroys, Jesus told you what spirit that is. “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.”(John 10:10) If a “divine” activity heals, forgives, restores, embraces enemies, and sets captives free—that’s the Father.

So I’m content with Jesus’s rule. If He doesn’t do the works of the Father, don’t believe Him. But He does. And because He does, I believe this is what the Father is like—no oaths, no retaliatory violence, no purity exile, no blood-price at the point of pardon. Just the fruit we cannot argue with: life, mercy, healing, and love that refuses to mirror evil.

Jesus was a radical. He came to pay the price of a ransom to a tyrant - Yahweh. Yahweh was a bene-elohim, not the Father. Jesus knew this. Jesus came to pay the price and to show us the true Father - the one no one had ever seen or heard yet. Christians, you’ve had the wool pulled over your eyes by Jewish scribes whose best interest was to say that Jesus called on Yahweh. He didn’t. He never spoke the name. And when He had the opportunity to use the Greek Equivalent of Yahweh (“kurios”), He didn’t use it. He never said anything nice about Yahweh, He didn’t support anything Yahweh did. He contradicted Yahweh’s laws and said they were from the evil one. It is all right there to be seen if you have eyes to see it. 👉 Want to go deeper? Get your copy of The Yahweh Deception today and begin uncovering the truth for yourself. Buy the book here