Did Jesus Claim to Be God?

A friend of mine recently confronted me with a number of claims commonly made about Jesus and the Bible. I find them quite amusing because it shows how unaware the majority of people in the west are now about the roots of their own society.

One is that Jesus and disciples didn’t speak Greek, only Aramaic. If true that might make the New Testament unreliable, because not one Aramaic original has been found of any of the New Testament books.

All you have to be is ignorant of the history of the region to believe that they did not speak Greek. The whole Middle East up to and including parts of India had been conquered by Alexander the Great by 331 BC. The empire was then taken over by his generals upon his death. The whole region had been speaking Greek as the language of commerce for about 300 years before Jesus showed up. Even the Romans educated their leaders in Greek as well as Latin, since large parts of their empire were Greek-speaking.

The one that interests me the most, however, is the claim that Jesus did not ever claim to be God. The corollary is that it was later followers after the original disciples who claimed that he had a divinity that he never claimed. One of those later disciples may have been the Apostle Paul who apparently changed Christianity from a Jewish sect to a Gentilized religion.

I won’t comment about the claim about changing the religion because the main focus of this post will be on Jesus’ divinity. Let’s have a look at this claim in two parts: Jesus claims about himself and the claims of his disciples. We will do that by looking at passages in which assertions are made about Jesus and briefly mentioning what is said.

Jesus’ own claims:

John 8:56-59 Jesus claims that he existed even before Abraham

John 10:36 “because I said I am the Son of God?”

Luke 2:43-49 at age 12 he considers the Temple of God in Jerusalem “my Father’s house”

John 10:38 and 14:10-11 Jesus claims that his Father is in him and he is in his Father.

John 10:17 Jesus says he will both lay down his life and take it up again. While other people may be confident that God will resurrect them, it takes something else entirely to claim that you, the corpse, will raise yourself from the dead.

John 5:25-29 Jesus frequently refers to himself as the “Son of Man” but here he equates the Son of Man with the Son of God, therefore he calls himself the Son of God. Jesus says that even the dead in him will hear his voice and rise from their graves.

John 11:43-44 “Lazarus, come out! ” And four-days dead Lazarus obeys Jesus’ voice, just like Jesus told them in the previous passage.

John 13:31-35 Jesus issues a new commandment by his own authority.

John 14:21 Jesus expects his disciples to obey his commandments.

Matthew 12:8, Mark 2:28, Luke 6:5 The authorities accuse Jesus of allowing his disciples to desecrate the sabbath by eating grain from a field. Jesus declares instead that he himself is “Lord of the sabbath.” Only God is lord of the sabbath, as we find out in the first chapter of Genesis when God institutes the sabbath.

What Others Thought and Said About Jesus and His Claims:

Jesus also makes claims that are not listed above. I have placed them in this section because they show how others respond to the claims.

Luke 5:20-26 and 7:47-50 Jesus claims the authority to forgive sins. Even his opponents see this as a claim to being God.

John 11:25-27 Martha is grieving for her dead brother and wishes Jesus had been there to prevent him from dying. She expects Jesus to resurrect him at a much later time, but Jesus informs her, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Who but God can claim that? Martha’s response is to call him the Son of God.

John 10:32-38 Jesus’ opponents are getting ready to stone him. Why? Because they believe that he is claiming to be God. I find it interesting that the people listening to Jesus understand this, but that modern scholars do not see the evidence.

John 6:68-69  Peter calls Jesus the Holy One of God.

Luke 8:22-25 After Jesus calms a storm by rebuking it, the disciples ask themselves, “who is this that even the wind and waves obey?” Who else but God can control the weather?

John 9:38 The man healed of blindness worships Jesus.

John 20:24-29 Thomas’ reaction to seeing Jesus alive after his resurrection, “My Lord and my God!”

John 5:18 The religious authorities know Jesus calls himself the Son of God, making himself equal to God. In fact, this is why they were trying to kill him.

Luke 8:28-33 and 4:31-37  Even demons acknowledge Jesus as Son of God / Holy One of God

Let us not forget John 1:1-14, which is John’s own conclusion of the matter based on his personal eyewitness experience.

As you can see the gospels provide overwhelming evidence not only that Jesus believed himself to be God, but that he also claimed it in ways that the people around him understood him as making that claim. Both believers and opponents knew what he was saying and reacted accordingly.

The only way to get around acknowledging that Jesus made the claim is by changing the scriptures to make them say what you want them to say.