Does God exist? Part 11: Jesus Christ Claimed to be God

All comic book superheroes have a vocation, which is to take their place as defenders of good in the battle against evil. One common motif found among these heroes is the taking on an alter ego, as in the cases of Batman (Bruce Wayne), Superman (Clark Kent), and Wonder Woman (Diana Prince). While in their alter egos, they can go about in public unnoticed. Only in exceptional cases do they ever reveal their true identities to others. Nevertheless, art does imitate life, as similar motifs can be found with the historical Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus had a vocation to teach and preach the good news about the kingdom of God throughout villages around Galilee and Jerusalem. He connected His vocation with the ministry of the Messiah (or Christ) as spoken about by the Old Testament prophets. Although there are non-divine messiahs out there as in the cases of Saul (1 Sam. 9:15-10:16; 15:1), David (1 Sam. 16:1-13) and Cyrus (Isa. 45:1-7), Jesus uniquely identified Himself as the divine messiah. But how did He go about doing that? He never really said openly, “Hey folks, I know you’re not going to believe me, but guess what? I’m God.” He was never that direct. Rather, Jesus made indirect statements about being divine, and there were those listening who got the message. Below are a few examples.

One of the ways Jesus indirectly disclosed His own divinity was in the way He presented His teachings. For example, the Lord often began pronouncements with formula “Truly I say to you…” or “Truly, truly, I say to you…” The English word “truly” or “verily” (KJV) is used to translate the Greek word “amen.” According to New Testament scholar Ben Witherington the term amen is “normally used by the congregation to affirm the truthfulness of what someone else says after they say it. Not so with Jesus. He vouches for the truthfulness of his own words in advance of saying them.”¹ More specifically Witherington says that “in Judaism you needed the testimony of two witnesses so witness A could witness the truth of witness B and vice versa. But Jesus witnesses to the truth of his own sayings. Instead of basing his teaching on the authority of others, he speaks on his own authority.”²

Scripture also informs us that Jesus addressed God in prayer as “Abba” (Mark 14:36). ³ This is an Aramaic word equivalent to Papa in English. Praying this way is unique to Jesus. According to Witherington this makes Jesus “the initiator of an intimate relationship that was previously unavailable.” This also “implies that Jesus had a degree of intimacy with God that is unlike anything in the Judaism of his day,” and only through having a relationship with him does this kind of prayer language — this kind of ‘Abba’ relationship with God — become possible.”⁴ Hence, the Apostle Paul writes, “You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Rm. 8:15) and “Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Gal. 4:6).

Jesus’ own identification with the “Son of Man” is another example of a divine disclosure. During His trial before the Jewish Sanhedrin (, the high priest asked “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” The Lord responded, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” Upon hearing the answer, the court rendered a guilty verdict on the charge of blasphemy and the sentenced the accused to death (Mk. 14:63-65; cf. Matt. 26:57-68; Luke 22:66-71).

Why did the Sanhedrin pronounce the death sentence? The “Son of Man” title comes from the Book of Daniel. Daniel said, “Behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed” (Dan. 7:13-14). Of all the beastly kingdoms that would come and go in the stream of history — particularly, the reigns of the winged lion, the bear, the winged leopard, and the beast with ten horns — the one received by the Son of Man endures forever.

Jesus’ response also alludes to Psalm 110, wherein David proclaimed, “The Lord says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool” (Psa. 110:1). Then in a subsequent stanza, the psalmist declares, “The Lord is at your right hand” and “He will execute judgment among the nations” (Psa. 110:5, 6). Hank Hanegraaff indicates that Jesus “was not only claiming to be the preexistent Sovereign of the universe, but also prophesying that He would vindicate His claim by judging the very court that was not condemning Him” and that “He would sit upon the throne of Israel’s God and share God’s very glory.”⁵ This is another indirect self-disclosure to Jesus’ own divinity.

The Sanhedrin got the message, but instead of recognizing Christ’s divinity, they condemned Him as a blasphemer.

The Gospel of John also preserves for us several statements made by Jesus that were taken to be self-disclosures of divinity by those who heard them. On one occasion, for example, certain fellow Jewish countrymen who were religious fundamentalists began persecuting Jesus for healing a paralytic man lying at the Pool of Bethesda. The objection was over the performance of a miracle upon the Sabbath. Since all work was to cease on the Sabbath, the fundamentalists saw fit to prohibit the working of miracles. But the Lord responded, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” One account of this, they “were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God” (Jn. 5:1-18). Jesus was taking upon Himself a divine prerogative. Just as the God the Father is always at work in sustaining the universe even on the Sabbath, so too God the Son can do some good on the Sabbath, like restore normal function to a broken body.

On another occasion, Jesus said, “I and the Father are one,” and “the Jews picked up stones again to stone Him” (10:30-31). It is noted that “the Jews were quick to apprehend this statement and reacted by preparing to stone Jesus for blasphemy because he, a man, had asserted that he was one with God. For them Jesus’ language did not mean simply agreement of thought or purpose but carried a metaphysical implication of deity.”⁶

Jesus even referred to Himself as I AM, just as the God of the Old Testament identified Himself as “I AM.” During a conversation about the true offspring of Abraham, the Lord said, “Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” But some fellow Jewish countrymen interjected, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” To which the He replied, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (Jn. 8:56-58). Craig Keener points out, “If Jesus merely wished to imply that he existed before Abraham, he should have said, ‘Before Abraham was, I was.’ But ‘I am’ was a title for God (Ex 3:14), which suggests that Jesus is claiming more than that he merely existed before Abraham.”⁷ The skeptics in the audience got the idea, Jesus made a claim to deity, so “they picked up stones to throw at him” (Jn. 8:59), i.e. they wanted to execute Him for blasphemy.⁸

“What if God was one of us?” So goes the refrain from a 90s pop song. God does just that. The Lord entered into this world as one of us. Yet, the Jesus never remained totally incognito; rather, He spokes indirectly about His divinity to others and a good number of them got the message. All in all, it is undeniable that Jesus claimed to be God. To those who believe, how marvelous and wonderful is that? God is here and He is not silent. God is with us!

Jesus Christ claimed to be God and the disciples believed Him, but what led the disciples to believe? Why not just brush the man off as deranged? What convinced them of that Jesus was God? The next post will address these questions.

— WGN

---

1. Ben Witherington, “Jesus as God,” in Evidence for God: 50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy, and Science, ed. William A. Dembski and Michael R. Licona (Grand Rapids, MIL Baker Books, 2010),158.
2. Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 136.
3. All Scripture cited from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), unless noted.
4. Strobel, 137.
5. Hank Hanegraaff, The Complete Bible Answer Book: Collector’s Edition Revised and Updated (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2008, 2016), 247.
6. Merrill C. Tenney, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 9, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1981), 112.
7. Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, Il: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 287.
8. Ibid