Jesus claims to be God in the Bible
 Regular Network Norwich and Norfolk columnist James Knight highlights the parts in the Bible where Jesus explains that he is God.
In the past I have spoken with people who doubted that Jesus ever claimed to be God, and also people who have I think misinterpreted what our Lord claims about Himself in scripture. I thought it would be good to put together some thoughts and Bible verses showing why I believe with all my heart that those who deny Jesus’ Divinity are mistaken. I think the scriptures indicate both Jesus’ Divinity and His intention for those who can see God in His personhood.
Among all men who ever lived, Jesus stands apart from each one. Throughout the gospels, Jesus claimed Himself to be God; He claimed to have authority over creation, over the law, over sin, and over death. The miracles Christ performed in public, over nature, sin, sickness, spiritual forces and death displayed this authority over every realm of creation. In John 10:30-33 Jesus said some remarkable words, He said, 'I and the Father are one.' Upon hearing this astounding and outrageous claim, the Jews picked up stones to stone Him, but Jesus said to them,
'I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?'
The leaders replied,
'We are not stoning you for any of these but for blasphemy because you a mere man, claim to be God’.
The Jewish enemies of Christ clearly understood His claims and it is for this reason they killed Him. His disciples also understood His claim and delineated it in their message. If Jesus is not God then clearly He would have made a concerted effort to disclaim what was felt – He would have allayed the anger of the Jews by reassuring them that He was not making such an outrageous claim. But He didn’t – His silence said it all – I Jesus Christ am claiming to be God. Let’s have a look at some of the Bible verses which compound this point further.
A patent claim by Jesus that He is God is found in Revelation 1:8, when God says:
"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."
Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. God is saying I am the A-Z, the beginning and end, the first and last. Now in Revelation 22:13, Jesus says:
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”
So what God claims, so does Jesus. There can only be one beginning and one end. It is God in Revelation chapter 1 and Jesus in chapter 22. In actual fact, Jesus declares Himself to be Lord of Lords (Revelation 17:14) – there is no one above Him. We see in Zechariah 2:10 that it is our Heavenly Father who declares the words "Shout and be glad, O Daughter of Zion. For I am coming, and I will live among you”. The verse is a patent revelation from God the Father, that it is indeed Him that will come down and live among us: He comes in the shape of Jesus.
Christianity is the only religion that claims Jesus is God in human flesh. The Bible is replete with texts affirming this:
In Isaiah 35:4-6 God says:
Say to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you." Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.
If we look at Matthew 11:5, Jesus says this is His own mission:
The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.
In Zechariah 12:10 God gives a prophecy:
And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.
In the John 19:35-37 we hear the following about Jesus – He is the fulfilment of the prophecy:
The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: "Not one of his bones will be broken," and, as another scripture says, "They will look on the one they have pierced."
There are many other verses in the Bible that tell us that Jesus is God. God says, in Isaiah 45:23:
By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear.
Compare this to Philippians 2:10-11, here it is at Jesus’ name that every knee should bow:
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Isaiah 8:13-14 says this about God the Father:
The LORD Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread, and he will be a sanctuary; but for both houses of Israel he will be a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. And for the people of Jerusalem he will be a trap and a snare.
In 1 Peter 2:8, Peter says the same thing about Jesus:
"A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall." They stumble because they disobey the message-- which is also what they were destined for.
In Jeremiah 17:10, God the Father says:
"I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.
In Revelation 2:23,Jesus says the same about Himself:
All the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.
Jesus also says in John 17:5 that he was here before the world began - He had no creator:
And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
The Bible clearly shows that what God claims, so does Jesus – He is placing Himself on the same level of Divinity as our Heavenly Father – a claim that would be outrageous were He not equal to God. Another patent claim by Jesus is His ability to forgive sins; something only God can do. In Romans 2:11,God says all of His created beings are equal - For there is no partiality with God. No one is higher than anyone else, so by Jesus claiming Himself higher, He is telling us that He is God. In fact, to emphasise the point in a greater fashion, In John 16:28 Jesus says:
“I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father."
Probably the most direct claim that Jesus is God can be found by cross referencing the books of Exodus and John. In Exodus 3:13-14 we read:
Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'"
Now compare that to what Jesus says in John’s gospel. In John 8:54-59 we read:
Jesus replied, "If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad." "You are not yet fifty years old," the Jews said to him, "and you have seen Abraham!" "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!" At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
 Jesus saying, “Before Abraham was, I AM” is perhaps His most direct claim to being God. It is on this point that we see some thing else astounding about Jesus Christ. In the New Testament we see that He frequently allows Himself to be worship. There is no way Jesus would accept worship if He was not God.
Three more claims from Jesus in John’s gospel that he is HIM.
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; John 11:25
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6
Do not you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. John 14:10-14
In Hebrews 1:8,God the Father addresses the Son as God:
"Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever, and righteousness will be the sceptre of your kingdom.
Those who are open to the truth will recognise the message, and indeed the evidence in scripture that Jesus purports to be God. The Bible states that Jesus is the Creator of the universe:
In these last days He has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe. Hebrews 1:2
"In the beginning O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. Hebrews 1:10
For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:16-17
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. John 1:1-3
Making up the Trinity is, of course the Holy Spirit, who is, as the Bible declares, also equal to God. We find in Hebrews 3:7-9that the Holy Spirit is referred to as God:
So, as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did.
Notice that these are also God’s words in Psalm 95: 7-11 - it is evident here that the Holy Spirit is claiming what God claims about Himself:
For he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me, though they had seen what I did. For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said, "They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways." So I declared on oath in my anger, "They shall never enter my rest."
Similarly, what the Holy Spirit says in Hebrews 10:15-16:
The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: "This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds."
God the Father had said about Himself in Jeremiah 31:33-34
"This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbour, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."
Acts 5:3-4tells us that if you lie to the Holy Spirit you are lying to God Himself:
"Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Did not it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, was not the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God."
The Holy Spirit is all powerful, just like God as it tells us in Luke 1:35-37:
The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God."
In Hebrews 9:14 we find that the Holy Spirit is eternal Just like God:
How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
And in 1 Corinthians 2:10-11 we find that just like God the Holy Spirit is all-knowing:
But God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
All three have distinctions as persons in the unity of God’s nature. As Christians we do not state that the Father is the Son, or the Holy Spirit is the Father, we say that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three persons of one God:
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Matthew 28:19
This does not mean that we have three Gods, we have one God who has three aspects to His personality; the Father is Lord (Matthew 11:25), the Son is Lord (Acts 2:36), and Holy Spirit is Lord (2 Corinthians 3:17). Knowledge of God can only come through His own revelation of Himself, which He has done through the Bible, and through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Understanding God is all about understanding the three aspects of His personality, and of course we can see now how absurd it is for people to claim that they cannot see God in Jesus Christ or in the Holy Spirit.
We see something very interesting when assessing why Jesus didn’t make it more obvious by saying ‘I am God’ – He left it rather late in His ministry before declaring Himself to be the Christ, and I think the reason why is that He didn’t want all the negative connotations that come with bringing in a new way of life. He didn’t want to founder a religion and He didn’t want His name to be associated with cultism. It is as Karl Barth said, “He does not confess His messiahship until the moment when the danger of founding a religion is finally past”. One ought to remember that Jesus accepted the title of messiah when others addressed Him that way, but it may even be true that He remained furtive in His messiahship in order to protect His disciples and those who had not yet set out on missions to proclaim His word.
Jesus Christ and the truths of the Bible are not simply facts we should blithely contemplate; they are truths that, of necessity, require the utmost scrutiny because of the life-changing significance of the claims. God invites us to have a personal relationship with Him, and after examining the evidence, each person must make the decision to either move in the direction the evidence is pointing, or find an alternative direction that can justify that decision. If the most judicious decision is reached, it is then that we experience the reality of God in our lives. As we search for answers, God reveals Himself to us, as we come into a relationship with Him, and ascend towards the fullness Christ’s love.
The views carried here are those of the author, not of Network Norwich and Norfolk, and are intended to stimulate constructive debate between website users. We welcome your thoughts and comments, posted below, upon the ideas expressed here. You can also contact the author direct at james.knight@norfolk.gov.uk
James is a Norwich local government officer, author and Proclaimers church member in Norwich. You can access his current collections of columns here
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