IS JESUS BOTH 

MESSIAH AND GOD?
Chapter 22

Back to previous page

 

 

he thought that Jewish writers might ascribe deity to another human being has brought much criticism to the Gospel accounts. Ian Wilson, in his book Jesus: Vie Evidence, has one chapter called, "How He Became God." In it he claims that "no Gospel regarded Jesus as God, and not even Paul had done SO."  According to Wilson, the deifying of Jesus was primarily a product of the fourth-century Council of Nicea, not the belief of early Christians.

 

It is therefore necessary to sort out the historical details related to Jesus' alleged messiahship and deity. Did He think of Himself as Messiah and Son of God? What did He mean by the term "Son of God"? What did the people understand Him to mean? In order to answer these questions, we first must understand what the people expected the coming Messiah to be like.

 

Messianic Expectations

 

For about a hundred years, beginning in 164 B.C., the Jewish people tasted independence. Professor Jim Fleming, reflecting on the final loss of Jewish national sovereignty, states:

 

Although this period had found its abrupt termination with the campaign of the Romans and General Pompey (63 B.C.), hope for its restoration had never been given up completely. Jesus was born into a time when the people anticipated the coming of the Messiah (cf. Song of Songs 17) and freedom from the Roman yoke.

 

One of the best analyses of first-century messianic expectations has been done by Geza Vermes. He observes that at this time there was both a widespread popular belief about what Messiah would be like and a number of minority splinter opinions: "It would seem more appropriate to bear in mind the difference between general messianic expectations of Palestinian Jewry, and peculiar messianic speculations characteristic of certain learned and/or esoterical minorities."

 

In order to determine what kind of Messiah the Jewish masses generally expected, Vermes advises, "A reliable answer is to be found in the least academic, and at the same time most normative, literary form: prayer."

 

Therefore, one of the best surviving sources regarding messianic expectation during this time is the Psalms of Solomon (a book of Jewish prayers), probably written just after the Roman conquest of Judea in 63 B.C. These psalms (obviously not written by Solomon) reflect the common view of a righteous, reigning Messiah who would militarily reestablish Israel's sovereignty and restore a just government over the nation:

 

Behold, O Lord, and raise up unto them their king, the son of David ... And gird him with strength, that he may shatter unrighteous rulers ... With a rod of iron he shall break in pieces all their substance, He shall destroy the godless nations with the word of his mouth ... And he shall gather together a holy people ... He shall have the heathen nations to serve him under his yoke ... And he shall be a righteous king, taught by God ... And there shall be no unrighteousness in his days in their midst. For all shall be holy and their king the Anointed (of) the Lord.

 

Psalm of Solomon 18 speaks of God's Anointed who will "use His 'rod' to instill the 'fear of the Lord' into every man and direct them to 'the works of righteousness.' "

 

Vermes concludes:

 

Ancient Jewish prayer and Bible interpretation demonstrate unequivocally that if in the intertestamental era a man claims, or was proclaimed, to be "the Messiah," his listeners would as a matter of course have assumed that he was referring to the Davidic Redeemer and should have expected to find before them a person endowed with the combined talents of soldierly prowess, righteousness and holiness.

 

It is therefore understandable why, especially in view of the Roman occupation of Israel's land, most Jewish people would not see in Jesus what they expected of the Messiah.

 

Millar Burrows of Yale wrote, "Jesus was so unlike what all Jews expected the son of David to be that His own disciples found it almost impossible to connect the idea of Messiah with Him."

 

And finally, as the Jewish scholar Samuel Sandmel puts it,

 

Any claims made, during the lifetime of Jesus, that He was the Messiah whom the Jews had awaited, were rendered poorly defensible by His crucifixion and by the collapse of any political aspect of His movement, and by the sad actuality that Palestine was still not liberated from Roman dominion.

 

The popular concept of Messiah as a reigning military deliverer, then, was a natural deterrent for most Jewish people to consider Jesus as Messiah. The question is: Was the popular concept the correct concept?

 

It is clear that not all Jewish people of Jesus' day held the majority opinion. Vermes observes,

 

In addition to the royal concept, messianic speculation in ancient Judaism included notions of a priestly and prophetic Messiah, and in some cases, of a messianic figure who would perform all these functions in one.

 

 

The important point is that not everyone held to the popular concept of the awaited Messiah. There was enough obscurity in what Messiah was to be that a number of the especially religious Jews found the charisma of Jesus to fit with their picture of the Messiah. The fact that they also expected Him to deliver Israel from Roman oppression made Jesus' primary mission more complicated.

 

The big problem was the Romans. They were completely aware of the popular messianic expectations of the Jewish people. Tacitus (writing at the beginning of the second century A.D.) reports: "There was a firm persuasion ... that at this very time the East was to grow powerful, and rulers coming from Judea were to acquire a universal empire."

 

At about the same time, writing about the decade following the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70, Suetonius wrote, "There had spread over all the Orient an old established belief, that it was fated at that time for men coming from Judea to rule the world."

 

It is obvious that the Romans were ready at a minute's notice to squash any messianic uprising. No wonder Jesus did not go around blurting out, "I am the Messiah." As we will see, He had much more effective ways of making that announcement.

 

The Gospels often reveal the messianic expectations of the people. From the beginning of Jesus' earthly life, when Simeon in the Temple identifies Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah, to the end, when many honor Him as Messiah at the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the Gospel accounts accurately reflect these expectations.

 

The messianic expectations of the Jewish people provide one of the strongest reasons for trusting the accuracy of the Gospel accounts as they describe Jesus' activities. Skeptics often claim that the life of Jesus described in the Gospels is too supernatural to be believed. What is often forgotten is that the great cause of the disciples died on the cross. Jesus certainly did not fulfill the messianic expectations of His disciples. Something had to happen, something no less powerful than what the Gospel accounts record, in order to motivate Jewish men and women to risk their lives to propagate this message which was so diametrically opposed to the prevailing messianic opinion of the day.

 

Did Jesus Think He Was Messiah?

 

Even as early as age twelve, Jesus refers to God as "My Father" (Luke 2:49). He continues to use the term throughout the Gospel accounts-a total of forty times! Jerusalem scholar, Dr. Robert Lindsey, explains the significance of this expression:

 

Synagogue prayers contain the expression, "Our Father [Avinu] who is in heaven," many times, and Jesus taught His disciples to pray a prayer which also begins, "Our Father who is in heaven." The expression, "My Father [avi]," however, almost certainly must have seemed improper to the Jews of that period. Only once in the Hebrew Scripture is God referred to as "my Father," and that is in Psalm 89, which speaks of the coming Messiah. Verse 26 reads, "He will call to me, 'Avi ata'-'You are my Father! The Messiah has the right to call God "my Father." I am quite sure that the rabbis of Jesus' day taught the people to say "Our Father who is in heaven," because they say "my Father" was reserved for the Messiah alone.

 

Second Samuel 7:14 also contains a prophecy about the Messiah: "I will be to him a father, and he will be to me a son." This verse marks the beginning of a coming Messiah who is the son of God.

 

It was known from Psalm 89:26, 2 Samuel 7:14 and Psalm 2:7 that the Messiah would be the son of God, but these verses do not contain the expression "son of God." What is used is, "He will call to me, 'You are my Father' "; "I will be a father to him, he will be a son to me"; and, "You are my son, this day I have brought you forth." This is the Hebraic way of expressing messiahship -it is the way the Holy Spirit spoke and the way Jesus spoke.

 

Jesus also declared Himself Messiah by the things He did. Look at John the Baptist in John 11. He sits in Herod's prison, and with free time on his hands he begins to review the events of his life. He especially reflects on whether or not he should have been referring his disciples to Jesus several months back (John 1:35-37). Having some doubts, he sends a question to Jesus by way of his disciples: "Are you the coming one, or shall we look for someone else?" (Matthew 11:3). Jesus tells John's disciples:

 

Go and report to John the things which you hear and see: the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them (Matthew 11:5).

 

 

 

Jesus drew these words from two verses found in Isaiah. The first, 35:5, occurs in the midst of a passage speaking of the arrival of the kingdom of God in Zion. The second, 61:1, is found in a context announcing the favorable year of the Lord. John, therefore, would have understood Jesus as saying not only "Yes, I am the Messiah," but also, "Here, I'm willing to give you proof no one else can bring that my claims are true." In this sense, every time Jesus healed someone or performed some attesting sign, He was declaring Himself to be Messiah.

 

Jesus declared Himself to be Messiah by His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. A verse in the Babylonian Talmud Menahoth  has Rabbi Yohanan explaining that "outside the wall" of Jerusalem means not further than the wall of Bethphage. When Jesus mounts the donkey foal in Bethphage and rides into Jerusalem, He is making a very definite statement that He understands Himself to be the Messiah. He clearly intends to fulfill Zechariah 9:9:

 

Rejoice greatly, 0 daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, 0 daughter of Jerusalem! Behold your King is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

 

The people clearly understood Jesus' intentions. Fleming states:

 

The palm became a symbol of Jewish nationalism. But on Palm Sunday the poor population of Jerusalem was feeling the heavy arm of Rome over them. There was a popular understanding by Jews of Jesus' day that Messiah would come during the Passover season. (Do you remember in John's Gospel that, after Jesus fed the 5,000, the people "wanted to make Him king because it was Passover"?) The role Messiah would play in the hopes of the populace was that He would deliver the people from oppression ... as in the days of the exodus from Egypt. By bringing the palm branches the people were in a way saying, "Jesus, we are all with you ... you see you have enough of a following to do something about the Roman garrison in Jerusalem."

 

 

In John 4, Jesus spoke with a Samaritan woman outside the city of Sychar. In the course of their conversation,

the woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that one comes, He will declare all things to us" (John 4:25).

 

Jesus probably felt more freedom in Samaria about disclosing His identity. Messianic expectations were quite subdued since the Samaritans believed only in the Pentateuch. Jesus therefore revealed to the woman, "I who speak to you am He" (John 4:26).

 

There was no question about it. Jesus clearly declared Himself to be the Messiah.

 

Another declaration of Jesus that He was the Messiah occurred at His trial before the high priest Caiaphas, the chief priests, and the elders and scribes (Matthew 26:57-68; Mark 14:53-65). In Mark's account, the high priest finally asked Jesus directly, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?" and Jesus responded, "I am; and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven." Notice that Jesus clearly spoke of Himself.

 

The term "Son of Man" was the way He usually referred to Himself. Son of Man occurs 81 times in the Gospel accounts. Notice also that Jesus clearly identified Himself as the one about whom Daniel prophesied when He revealed,

 

I kept looking in the night visions,

And behold, with the clouds of heaven

One like a Son of Man was coming,

And he came up to the Ancient of Days

And was presented before Him. And to Him was given dominion,

Glory and a kingdom,

That all the peoples, nations, and men of every language

Might serve Him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion,

Which will not pass away;

And His kingdom is one

Which will not be destroyed (Daniel 7:13,14).

 

In this passage Daniel reveals this coming one, and Jesus claims for Himself. (1) that He will come with or on the clouds of heaven; and (2) He will be given supreme authority over all mankind for all eternity. For the Sadducees, who controlled the Sanhedrin at this time and for whom "the Messianic hope played no role," 37/n.p. this claim was tantamount to blasphemy. (Blasphemy meant not just a claim to be God, but also slander against God or even against other persons.) Though the concept of Messiah would have been interpreted differently by Jesus, the scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees, there can be no doubt that Jesus clearly claimed He was that Son of Man to come, the Messiah.

 

That Jesus claimed to be Messiah is confirmed by the report, which the Sanhedrin must have delivered to Pilate in view of that claim. Norman Anderson explains:

 

The crucifixion, however, does seem to provide convincing proof of one point about which New Testament scholars have been much divided-and to which passing reference has already been made: namely, that Jesus Himself did believe that He was the Messiah. It is true that He did not make any such claim explicitly in His public preaching- partly, no doubt, for political reasons, but largely because of the mistaken expectations this would have aroused among His hearers. But it was clearly as a potential threat to Rome that Pilate and his minions delivered Him to a death largely reserved for the armed robber and the political insurgent. This is explicit in the inscription on the cross: "JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS" (John 19:19), which would seem to echo the Evangelists' report that part of the conversation between Pilate and Jesus had been about this very point (Matthew 27:11; Mark 15:2; Luke 23:3; John 18:33-37). And this, in its turn, must have been prompted by the fact that the "blasphemy" for which the Sanhedrin had condemned Him was His reply to the question (put to Him on oath by the high priest), "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?" with the words: "I am ... And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the mighty one and coming on the clouds of heaven" (Mark 14:61-64) -an affirmation that had naturally been reported by the chief priests to Pilate in explicitly political terms.

 

Though a number of Jewish scholars in the past have attempted to deny that Jesus thought of Himself as the Messiah, others now support His messianic consciousness. One is Samuel Sandmel, recognized as the leading U. S. Jewish authority in the New Testament and early Christianity. He was a professor at Yale, then at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati up to his death in 1979. Sandmel concluded, "I believe that He believed Himself to be the Messiah, and that those scholars who deny this are incorrect."

 

David Flusser, professor of comparative religion at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, like other Jewish scholars, sees "inauthentic" passages in the Gospel texts. Still he maintains that "other apparently authentic sayings of Jesus can be understood only if it is assumed that Jesus thought Himself to be the Son of Man." For Flusser, Jesus' concept of "Son of Man" was both messianic and divine.

 

Was Jesus the Messiah?

 

In the Old Testament, there are hundreds of prophesies alluding to the coming Messiah. The brilliant nineteenth-century Oxford professor, Canon Henry Liddon, found 332 "distinct predictions, which were literally fulfilled in Christ." [See Evidence That Demands a Verdict, pp. 145-175, for specific prophecies.]

 

For example, Daniel 9:25,26 indicates that the Messiah had to come before the second Temple was destroyed (A.D. 70). Micah 5:2 speaks of the Messiah's birthplace as Bethlehem Ephrathah, the town where Jesus was born. Isaiah 35:5,6 speaks of the blind, deaf, lame and dumb being healed. Isaiah 42:6 and 49:6 speak of the Messiah as a light to the Gentiles. Zechariah 9:9 predicts that the Messiah would come humbly, "mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey." Psalm 22 provides a graphic description of one undergoing crucifixion (even though crucifixion was unknown to the psalmist), and Jesus quoted its opening verse as He hung on the cross. Zechariah 12:9,10 even mentions in one passage the two separate comings of the Messiah:

 

And it will come about in that day that I will be about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem [second coming]. And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced [occurred at the first coming]; and they will mourn for Him, like the bitter weeping over a first-born.

 

But the Christian must be careful not to overstate the case. There are hundreds of additional messianic prophecies in the Old Testament, which have not yet found their fulfillment in Jesus. This is by necessity, for if it is prophesied that the Messiah had to suffer and die and yet is also to subsequently reign over an eternal kingdom (at least part of which is established on earth) then it follows that Messiah must somehow rise from the dead and come again. The most important and overlooked question is: Does the Old Testament predict that the Messiah must first suffer and die?

 

Christians and critics alike today are often so focused on the issue of Jesus' resurrection that they forget the other half of the apostles' preaching. Peter preached in the Temple, "But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ should suffer, He has thus fulfilled" (Acts 3:18).

 

Paul reasoned with the Thessalonians in their synagogue. He was "explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, 'This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ' " (Acts 17:3). Before King Agrippa Paul reported:

 

And so, having obtained help from God, I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, stating nothing but what the Prophets and Moses said was going to take place; that the Christ was to suffer, and that by reason of His resurrection from the dead He should be the first to proclaim light both to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles (Acts 26:22,23).

 

The apostles were saying nothing new. Jesus Himself repeatedly stated that He had to go to Jerusalem to suffer, die and be raised from the dead (Matthew 16:21; 17:12; Mark 8:31; 9:12; Luke 9:22; 17:25; 22:15; 24:26,46). But where in the Old Testament was this prophesied?

 

Many Jewish people today are surprised to find the following passage in the Jewish Bible, what Christians call the Old Testament:

 

See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. Just as there were many who were appalled at him-his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness -so will he sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand.

 

Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

 

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

 

Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors (Isaiah 52:13-53:12, NIV, written ca 700 B.C.).

 

For more than 1700 years, the Jewish rabbis interpreted this passage almost unanimously as referring to the Messiah. This fact is thoroughly documented in S. R. Driver and Adolf Neubauer's The Fifty-Third Chapter of Isaiah According to the Jewish Interpreters. 19/37-39 They quote numerous rabbis during this period who equated the servant of Isaiah 53 with the Messiah.

 

Not until the twelfth century A.D., no doubt under the suffering of the Jews at the hand of the Crusaders, did any Jewish interpreter say that Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12 refers to the whole nation of Israel, the most common interpretation today among Jewish scholars. Even after Rashi (Rabbi Solomon Yazchaki) first proposed this interpretation, however, many other Jewish interpreters have held, even to the present, the traditional Talmudic view that Isaiah 53 speaks of the Messiah. One of the most respected Jewish intellectuals of all history, Moses Maimonides (A.D. 1135 -1204) rejected Rashi's interpretation, and he taught that the passage was messianic.

 

Rashi and other Jewish interpreters are not necessarily grasping at straws to suggest that the servant is the nation of Israel. Isaiah 43:10 (NIV) says to the people of Israel: " 'You are My witnesses,' declares the LORD, 'and My servant whom I have chosen.' " Surely, then, the servant must be Israel.

 

That this interpretation is in error can first be seen in Isaiah 52:14 where the nation of Israel is compared to the servant: "Just as many were astonished at you, My people, so his appearance was marred more than any man." In 53:8, the servant bears punishment that should have been born by "my people" (obviously Israel). It makes no sense for the nation of Israel to bear substitutionary punishment for the nation of Israel. Therefore Israel cannot be the servant of Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12.

 

But what about Isaiah 49:3: "And He said to Me, 'You are My Servant, Israel, in Whom I will show My glory"'? Good point! We're glad you brought it up. The key to identifying the servant in Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12 is to see who he is in the three previous "servant songs" of Isaiah: 42:1-9; 49:1-12; and 50:4-9. Since these passages spoke of the servant, for example, establishing justice in the earth (Isaiah 42:4) and regathering the Jewish people from worldwide exile (Isaiah 49:8-13), Jewish interpreters have traditionally held the servant songs to be speaking of the Messiah, not the nation of Israel. Even Isaiah 49:3 does not say that Israel is the servant; rather it says that the servant (Messiah) is the true Israel! In verse 5 and 6 we see: "Now says the LORD, who formed Me from the womb to be His servant. . . 'to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved ones of Israel.' " The point is that Jacob (Israel) had gone astray, especially from the commission God gave to him: "In you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 28:14). The Servant (Messiah) was now to stand in Israel's place to do two things: (1) to bring the nation of Israel back to God (Isaiah 49:5); and (2) to be a light to the nations, as seen in verse 6:

 

It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant.... I will also make You a light of the nations so that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

 

If you caught what is going on here in Isaiah, you probably realize why Jesus so often appealed or alluded to this prophet. The Servant is the Messiah. The Messiah had to suffer and die for many. He also had to be raised from the dead (Psalm 16:10). When the monumental event of the resurrection did occur and the disciples were filled at Pentecost with the Spirit of God, they preached everywhere the message "that Messiah died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:3,4). To judge from the earliest surviving Christian literature, 1 Thessalonians, they also preached that the Messiah would come again.

 

Was Jesus the Messiah? If not, then there is to be no Messiah. No one prior to A.D. 70 had His credentials. All the prophecies which could be fulfilled in His first coming were fulfilled in Jesus. And He sealed it all with His own resurrection from the dead. It is therefore fitting to refer to Jesus as the Christ if one uses Greek terminology, or as the Messiah if one uses Hebrew terminology.

 

Did Jesus Really Believe He Was God?

 

Those who wrote the historical accounts of Jesus' life were thoroughly Jewish. The accounts themselves clearly certify that the witnesses' natural tendency was to see Jesus in a conquering messianic, not a divine messianic, posture. Even on the night of Jesus' arrest, the disciples brought swords to Jesus (Luke 22:38). As devoted worshippers of Yahweh, it must have been quite difficult for them to report some of the things Jesus said and did which attributed deity to Himself. Vermes states concerning the alleged deity of Jesus, "The identification of a contemporary historical figure with God would have been inconceivable to a first-century A.D. Palestinian Jew." 80/212 The thrust of Vermes' conclusions is that Jesus Himself never would have imagined that He was God. Let's look at the evidence.

 

In Matthew 12:6, Jesus says to the Pharisees, "I say to you, that something greater than the Temple is here." How much greater? Look at verse 8. Referring to Himself, Jesus asserts, "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." How can anyone be Lord of the Sabbath except God who instituted it? This is a direct claim to deity.

 

In Matthew 23:37, Jesus speaks as though He has personally observed the whole history of Jerusalem:

 

0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.

 

In Mark 2:1,2, Jesus tells a paralyzed man, "My son, your sins are forgiven." Some scribes sitting there caught the obvious intent of Jesus' words and reasoned:

 

Why does this man speak in this way? He is blaspheming; who can forgive sins but God alone?

 

Jesus challenged them:

 

Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, "Your sins are forgiven"; or to say, "Arise, and take up your pallet and walk"? But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins ...

 

And then Jesus healed the paralytic. The implication was obvious. No one forgives sin but God. Anyone could say he is able to forgive sin; but Jesus proved He had the authority to forgive sin when He healed the paralytic. Jesus was clearly claiming deity for Himself.

 

Back again in Matthew, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount (7:21-23), Jesus speaks of Himself as the ultimate judge who will have authority to deny entrance into the kingdom of heaven.

 

In the next paragraph, rather than say, "Everyone who hears the words of God or Torah will lay a strong foundation for their lives," Jesus states, "Everyone who hears these words of mine . . . "

 

David Biven, a researcher of the Hebraic background of the Gospel accounts, concludes:

 

It was not the way He taught or even the general content of His teaching that made Jesus unique among the rabbis. What was unique about Jesus was who He claimed to be, and He rarely ever taught without claiming to be not only God's Messiah, but more startlingly, Immanuel, "God with us."

 

It is surprising how critics try to reject Jesus' constant references to Himself as deity. Ian Wilson, for example, writes:

 

In the Mark Gospel, the most consistent in conveying Jesus' humanity, a man is represented as running up to Jesus and addressing Him with the words "Good Master." Jesus' response is a firm rebuke: "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone" (Mark 10:18).

 

Wilson's interpretation is 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Seen within the context of the situation, Jesus is using obvious irony In essence, He is arguing: (1) If no one is good but God alone, and (2) if I am good, then (3) 1 must be God. Often Jesus receives worship and does nothing to discourage it (see Matthew 14:33, John 9:38). You would think one who severely rebukes Peter for trying to keep Him from God's will of being crucified would also severely rebuke someone offering worship to Him which rightly ought to be given only to the one true living God. Paul severely reacted against being deified at Lystra (Acts 14:8-18). How much more should Jesus have reacted if He were only a mere man? Did He not quote Deuteronomy 6:13 to Satan during His temptation, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only"?

 

One notable occurrence of Jesus accepting worship is in Matthew 21:15,16. Children cried out, "Hosanna to the Son of David," in praise to Jesus. "Hosanna" is used here as a cry of adoration, but some critics insist on interpreting "Hosanna" in a stiffly literal sense, rendering the statement "Save us Son of David." This interpretation cannot be accurate, though, because (1) it would actually read: "Save us to the Son of David," which makes little or no sense; (2) the chief priests and scribes who saw Jesus receiving the praise "became indignant and said to Him, 'Do you hear what these are saying?' " as though Jesus should have silenced the crowd (something He would be expected to do only if the crowd were worshipping Him); and most important, (3) Jesus replied by attributing to Himself something which was meant for God alone. He asked the chief priests and scribes, "Have you never read, 'Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes Thou [God] hast prepared praise for Thyself [God]'?"

 

Did you catch what Jesus said? Basically it was, "When those children praise me, they are praising God."

 

Of all the Gospel writers, John most clearly perceived the cues Jesus gave about His identity. For his effort to report those cues, he has been the most criticized Gospel writer of all, allegedly falling under Hellenistic influence. Scholars today, however, have begun to realize the inaccuracy of this charge. In John 8:58, when Jesus proclaimed to a Jewish crowd, "Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was born, I Am," He was claiming two aspects of deity for Himself:

 

·        the eternal existence of God; and

 

·        the name of God.

 

Jesus was referring His listeners back to Exodus 3:13,14 where Moses tells God:

 

Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I shall say to them, "The God of your fathers has sent me to you." Now they may say to me, "What is His name?" What shall I say to them?

 

God answered Moses,

 

I AM WHO I AM ... Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, "I AM has sent me to you."

 

Any Jewish person would have heard Jesus' claim to deity loud and clear. That is why the very next verse in John's account says: "Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him" (John 8:59). In all, Jesus uses the term I am (Gr. Ego eimi) more than nineteen times in reference to Himself in the Gospel according to John. Often it is used to make claims about Himself that normally would be thought appropriate only for God. For example,

 

I am the bread of life, he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst (6:35);

 

I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life (8:12);

 

Unless you believe that I am He, you shall die in your sins (8:24);

 

I am the good shepherd (10:11-14) [cf. Psalm 23:1: "The LORD is my shepherd"];

 

I am the resurrection, and the life; He who believes in Me shall live even if he dies (11:25).

 

Other Scriptures on this subject include John 4:26; 6:41,48,51; 8:18, 28,58; 10:7,9; 13:19; 14:6; and 15:1.)

 

Earlier, in John 5:17, Jesus claimed to be continuing the work of the Father. He also called God "My Father." In John 10:28-30 Jesus again called God "My Father." He also claimed at one time to be the giver of eternal life and at another time to be one with the Father. On both those occasions, the Jewish crowds picked up stones to stone Him because, as they put it, "You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God" (John 10:33; cf. 5:18).

 

In John 14:6, Jesus did not just claim to be teaching mankind the truth; He claimed that He was the truth. In John 14:9, Jesus admonished Philip, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father." In Isaiah 42:8, God said, "I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another." But in John 17:5, Jesus prayed, "And now, glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory which I ever had with Thee before the world was."

 

In John 5:19ff., Jesus delivers a long monologue in which He makes repeated claims to be on the same level of authority as God the Father.

 

"Even in His parables," says Norman Geisler, "Jesus claimed functions reserved only for Yahweh in the Old Testament, such as being Shepherd (Luke 15), Rock (Matthew 7:24-27), and Sower (Matthew 13:24-30)." 31/14

 

C. S. Lewis puts all these claims in the right perspective when he reminds his readers that Jesus was a Jew among Jews:

 

Among these Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would be nothing very odd about it. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else. And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.

 

Was Jesus the God He Thought He Was?

 

The question, Is Jesus God? is fundamentally different from the question, Is God Jesus? In the latter, God is limited to earth during the earthly life of Jesus. In the former, God simply manifests Himself in human flesh. Of course this means that a trinitarian theology (or at least a dual-personality theology) must be adopted in order to keep God from vacating His sovereign rule over the universe during the life of Jesus. Many Jewish scholars today no longer criticize Christians for being tritheists. Though these scholars almost universally reject the doctrine of the trinity, they do not generally deny the logical possibility of a single God manifesting Himself in more than one personality.

 

This is not the place to demonstrate the doctrine of the trinity, but it is necessary to see that such a concept is not ruled out by the Old Testament Scriptures. If the Old Testament did rule out such a doctrine, it would be ridiculous to think of Jesus possibly being God.

 

The fact is, the Old Testament suggests a plurality of personalities in one God from the very beginning. Genesis 1:26 states: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.' "

 

Old Testament scholars Keil and Delitzsch have reviewed the arguments proposed against this verse and found them wanting. 45/1:61-62 It is enough to say that if the passage doesn't demand the multiple person view, it certainly allows for it, and the most natural reading of the passage supports it.

 

One of the greatest objections to the trinity usually comes from the most often recited verse among the Jewish people, Deuteronomy 6:4: "Hear, 0 Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!" The Hebrew word used here for "one" is echod, meaning a "composite unity." It is the same word used in Genesis 2:24 where the husband and wife are commanded to become one flesh. Had the writer of Deuteronomy 6:4 wished to express an absolute unity, he could have used the Hebrew word, yachid.

 

A number of other passages also either suggest or require that the Messiah be seen as deity. Psalm 45, for example, begins as a song celebrating "the l King's marriage." In verse 3 it moves to a Messiah-type figure and in verses 6 and 7 it reads:

 

Thy throne, 0 God, is forever and ever; A scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated wickedness; Therefore God, Thy God, has anointed Thee with the oil of joy above Thy fellows.

 

Sir Norman Anderson reviews a number of other passages concerning the Messiah:

 

His sway was to be not only universal (Psalm 2:8) but [also] eternal (Isaiah 9:7), and even divine (Psalm 45:6,7). The prophet Micah speaks of His pre-existence (Micah 5:2); Jeremiah describes Him as "The LORD our Righteousness" (Jeremiah 23:6); and Isaiah speaks of Him as "Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6) ... And it is interesting in this context to note that the statement in Hebrews 1:6 ("And when He again brings the first-born into the world, He says, 'And let all the angels of God worship him' ") almost certainly represents a quotation taken from the "Septuagint" Greek version of the Old Testament of words omitted from the end of Deuteronomy 32:43 in the now official Hebrew or "Massoretic" text, but present in that of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

 

Psalm 2:12 commands that the Messiah should be worshipped:

 

Do homage to the Son, lest He become angry, and you perish in the way, For His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!

 

In Zechariah 12:10, God says, "They will look on Me whom they have pierced." How can one pierce God unless He manifests Himself in the flesh? Of the ten other places where "pierce" is used, at least nine times a person is either thrust through or pierced to death; the remaining occurrence refers to wounded soldiers.

 

In Daniel 7:14, the Messiah is given an everlasting kingdom, "that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve Him." But if everyone is serving the Messiah, then no one would be left to serve the Lord unless the Lord and the Messiah are somehow united.

 

We can say then that the Old Testament in some places at least allowed for and in other places required that the Messiah to come should be identified as God eternal. Thus, if Jesus was Messiah, and if Messiah was God, then Jesus had to be God.

 

Returning to the first disciples, E. M. Blaiklock observes:

 

One of the sources of youth's disillusionment is the fading halo around the head of some human hero it has hastily sought to worship. Not so with Christ and His disciples. For three years they trod together the lanes and byways of Galilee and Judea. They climbed together the rough roads up to Jerusalem, sat together in the lush grass above Tabgha. Together they bore the heat of Jericho and the cold winds of the Galilean lake. They shared His chill rest beneath the stars, His breakfast on the beach. Together they bore storms and tensions in the holy city, together they enjoyed Bethany's hospitable home. Surely, this was test enough if shrewd men were to know Him. What happened? Far from detecting the hidden flaw, the human burst of annoyance at the end of a weary day, personal ambition betrayed by a chance word or unwise confidence, far from finding in Him disappointing blemishes, they found that their sense of wonder and reverence grew.

 

It is an amazing fact that the message of Jesus, including His deity, was spread abroad by these Jewish men and women. As James D. G. Dunn, Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham in England, states:

 

The testimony comes not from Gentiles to whom the deification of an emperor was more like a promotion to "the upper chamber." It comes from Jews. And Jews were the most fiercely monotheistic race of that age. For a Jew to speak of a man, Jesus, in terms which showed Him as sharing in the deity of God, was a quite astonishing feature of earliest Christianity.

 

It is remarkable enough that a Jew like Thomas would come to the point of calling Jesus "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28). But then there is Paul. It is unbelievable how critics tend to forget he was a Jew par excellence. He was trained in Judaism by none other than Rabbi Gamaliel. He was so zealous for his monotheistic faith that he began persecuting the Christians. His goal in life was to help bring to pass Isaiah 45:22,23 where God says through the prophet, "I am God, and there is no other ... to me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance" [emphasis ours]. And then Paul discovered that this One had stepped out of eternity and into time. Now Paul writes of Him:

 

He existed in the form of God ... but emptied Himself... being made in the likeness of men ... He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross ... that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow ... and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:6-11, emphasis ours).

 

That Paul meant "God" by the term Lord is clear from Romans 10:13 where he quotes Joel 2:32: "Whoever calls on the name of the LORD will be delivered." In Joel 2:32, the LORD is clearly God.

 

These first-century Jewish men and women came to accept Jesus as the God of their monotheistic faith. Why? Certainly they had been attracted to Him by His teaching and attesting miracles. At some point they obviously put two and two together to see that Jesus, the Son of Man, was also the Messiah, that Messiah was God and therefore that He must also be God. But it was the resurrection that solidified their conviction. Norman Anderson summarizes:

 

He frequently made claims which would have sounded outrageous and blasphemous to Jewish ears, even from the lips of the greatest of prophets. He said that He was in existence before Abraham and that He was "lord" of the sabbath; He claimed to forgive sins; He frequently identified Himself (in His work, His person and His glory) with the one He termed His heavenly Father; He accepted men's worship; and He said that He was to be the judge of men at the last day, when their eternal destiny would depend on their attitude to Him. Then He died. It seems inescapable, therefore, that His resurrection must be interpreted as God's decisive vindication or these claims, while the alternative -the finality or the cross -would necessarily have implied the repudiation of His presumptuous and even blasphemous assertions.

 

 

Top of page   Print this
A Ready Defense Index