Did Jesus Claim To Be God?
How can we share the gospel of Jesus' divinity as evangelists? The thought of this task misleads us into believing it requires intense research and reading. However, it only requires one difficulty for you to comply with: being simple. A simple explanation of Jesus' divinity will reveal the light of the Scriptures.
CHRISTIANOLOGY FUNDAMENTALS
Jokubas Urbonas
11/8/20245 min read
This article will focus on the claim that Jesus is divine. This claim will be observed by the Gospels, on what they state regarding this subject. In examining the Gospels, the passages will specifically focus on what Jesus says about Himself. Once each passage has been analyzed, it will be concluded whether Jesus claimed to be God or not. As this article focuses on being simple, it will only center upon three specific passages.
1) Passage: The Authority of Jesus' Name (Matthew 18:19-20)
After Jesus gave instructions on how you must respond to a sinful brother, he would conclude: "For where two or three are assembled in My name, there I am in their midst". Jesus says that if you gather under His name, He will be in your group's presence. It is rare for a monotheistic prophet to state that if you gather under his name, he will be in your group. If Jesus is only a prophet, why would he claim such authority? The authority of a name you assemble under is reserved for God.
While Jesus was in Capernaum, news of his presence in the city would spread. This would cause a large gathering around Jesus to meet Him. As He taught and preached, there was a paralytic man brought unto Jesus. Jesus said to him, "Your sins are forgiven". He would be healed. The scribes and the Pharisees analyzed his statement, believing it blasphemy. Receiving forgiveness can only come from the love of God, yet this paralytic man receives forgiveness.
As Jesus' disciples were casting out demons, they rebuked a man casting out unclean spirits in the name of Jesus. John would tell what he and the disciples did, but Jesus rebuked him. Jesus stated that they should not stop the man. He was allowed by Jesus to cast out demons in His name.
In the first passage, Jesus is claiming that He is providential. This attribute only belongs to God. He's not simply saying that his followers will bear strong memory of him while praying in Church, He's saying He will be in the Church! (For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I). The use of the word, "church" in this article is not referring to the infrastructure that houses her believers. It is referring to the group of believers. The followers and believers of Christ is the Church.
The significant implication for Jesus being providential is that He hears all our prayers. Hearing all our prayers? This means that He has heard and still hears all our cries for help; this includes our thirstiness for fulfillment in life, our grief over a tragic event, our uncertainty of what to decide upon and our irritation for forgetting something valuable.
In the second passage, Jesus is claiming that He is merciful. In Isaiah 43:25, God says to Israel that it is He who forgives the nations' sins. In Daniel 9:9, the divine attributes of forgiveness and mercy belongs to God. Forgiveness and mercy join hand in hand with repentance. Repentance is not possible without receiving forgiveness from God, neither is it possible without the mercy of God. Receiving the mercy of being forgiven for your sins is a divine act of love.
Jesus is showing love to the paralytic man that no human could ever show. The significant implication for Jesus being merciful is that true repentance is not possible without Him. This means that only He can forgive our sins, only He can restore and heal us, and only He can make us new. If the paralytic man was made new when he was forgiven - then no individual can receive the same forgiveness and renewal from any god, except from Jesus.
In the third passage, Jesus is claiming that He is power. In rebuking a individual for casting out demons in Jesus' name, did Jesus compliment what John and his disciples did? He rebuked them back! He told them that they were wrong! Jesus could've easily praised the disciples for what they did. He could've told them that they were right, and the individual was wrong. The name of God must be a name above all names.
In being a name above all names, Jesus never casts out demons under any other divine name. He only casts demons out by commanding them to depart. If this is the case, the rebuke of Jesus is sensible. The very name that Jesus Christ has casts out all unclean spirits. You wouldn't need to cast out a spirit in your name, if you had the name that could cast out all evil spirits. To remove the evil spirit, you must have a name that's above the evil spirit.
Jesus Christ claims He is providential. merciful and powerful. He shows these divine attributes through His Mighty Name. His divine name is infinitely present through all time. His divine love is infinitely loving for all people. His divine presence is infinitely above all evil. He doesn't just claim to be God, He claims to be the ear to our prayers, the heart of mercy, and the power over evil. These significant implications reveal that Jesus claimed to be God. You could not make these great claims, if you weren't claiming something significant about yourself. Jesus wasn't being poetic or aesthetic (in earthly terms), He was speaking about something greater. If He was speaking about something greater, surely this could be about His divinity as God.
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