Chapter Five: Who Did Jesus Claim to Be?

Let Us Reason Together

Mark 2:1-12; John 8:48-59; John 10:22-33

What We Mean When We Say "God"

Before we can ask whether Jesus claimed to be God, we must be clear about what we mean when we say "God." Scripture is emphatic that there is one God: "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!" (Deuteronomy 6:4). "I am the LORD, and there is no other; besides Me there is no God" (Isaiah 45:5). Yet the same Scriptures reveal the Father as God, the Son as God, and the Holy Spirit as God, each distinct from the others. At the baptism of Jesus, all three are present at once. The Son stands in the water, the Spirit descends upon Him like a dove, and the Father speaks from heaven, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased" (Matthew 3:16-17). Jesus later commanded that His disciples be baptized "in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19). It is one name, and there are three persons.

Therefore, when we say "God," we are using one word for a great deal. We mean the one eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present, uncaused Being, who exists eternally as three distinct and equally divine persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He is one in essence and three in persons. He is not three gods, and He is not one person who takes turns appearing in three forms. The Son prays to the Father. The Father sends the Son. The Father and the Son send the Spirit. The persons relate to one another, and yet God is one.

We cannot comprehend that, and we should not be surprised that we cannot. We are not God, nor are we greater than God, so there is no way we could ever take Him in fully. But we can apprehend what He has revealed. "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever" (Deuteronomy 29:29). We can know God truly, even though we cannot know Him exhaustively.

So when we ask whether Jesus claimed to be God, we are not asking whether He claimed to be the Father. He did not. We are asking whether He claimed to be the eternal Son, sharing fully in the one divine nature. That is exactly what He claimed, and the people who heard Him understood it.

Who Has the Right to Forgive?

C. S. Lewis made this point with a simple illustration, and I will put it in our own terms.

Suppose a man steals your neighbor's truck. A few days later, you go to the thief and say, "I forgive you." Your neighbor would rightly ask what business you have forgiving a wrong that was done to him. It was not your truck. Forgiveness belongs to the one who was wronged. A man can forgive what is done to him, but he cannot forgive what is done to someone else.

Therefore, a man who walks into a room and forgives every sin of every person, sins committed against their neighbors, their families, and their God, is doing one of two things. Either he is speaking nonsense, or he is the One against whom every sin is ultimately committed.

That brings us to the question of this chapter. Did Jesus actually claim to be God, or did His followers say it of Him later? The answer is found in what He said, in what He did, and in what His enemies did in response.

He Claimed to Forgive Sins

Mark records a day when Jesus was teaching in a house in Capernaum, and the crowd was so large that no one else could get through the door. Four men carrying a paralyzed friend on a pallet would not be turned away. "Being unable to get to Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Him; and when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying" (Mark 2:4).

Everyone in that room knew what the man needed. He needed to walk. Jesus looked at him and said something else entirely: "Son, your sins are forgiven" (Mark 2:5).

The scribes sitting there understood exactly what He meant. "Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming; who can forgive sins but God alone?" (Mark 2:7). Their theology was correct. Only God can forgive sins, because every sin is ultimately a sin against Him. David, after his sin against Bathsheba and Uriah, still prayed, "Against You, You only, I have sinned" (Psalm 51:4). The scribes reasoned correctly from a true premise. Their error was in the conclusion they drew about the man standing in front of them.

Notice what Jesus does next. "Immediately Jesus, aware in His spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves, said to them, 'Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts?'" (Mark 2:8). He knew their thoughts before they spoke them. Then He asked them a question: "Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven'; or to say, 'Get up, and pick up your pallet and walk'?" (Mark 2:9).

The answer is that it is easier to say "Your sins are forgiven," because no one can check it. Forgiveness happens where no one can see. Saying "Get up and walk" is far harder, because everyone in the room can check it within seconds. Therefore Jesus does the visible thing to prove the invisible thing: "But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins," He said to the paralytic, "I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home" (Mark 2:10-11).

"And he got up and immediately picked up the pallet and went out in the sight of everyone, so that they were all amazed and were glorifying God, saying, 'We have never seen anything like this'" (Mark 2:12).

Jesus did not merely claim divine authority. He submitted the claim to a public test, and the test was passed in front of His critics. It is also worth remembering that Mark is generally dated as the earliest of the four Gospels. The claim did not appear late in the record. It is there from the beginning.

He Claimed the Divine Name

In John 8, Jesus is in a long and heated argument in the temple. His opponents press Him about Abraham, the father of their nation. "Surely You are not greater than our father Abraham, who died? ... whom do You make Yourself out to be?" (John 8:53). Jesus answers, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad" (John 8:56). They scoff: "You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?" (John 8:57).

Then Jesus says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am" (John 8:58).

Had He said, "Before Abraham was born, I was," He would have been claiming to be very old. He said "I am." He claimed an existence without beginning, and He used the very name God gave Himself at the burning bush: "God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM'; and He said, 'Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, "I AM has sent me to you"'" (Exodus 3:14).

His audience did not miss it. "Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him" (John 8:59). The Law prescribed stoning for one particular offense of speech: "the one who blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall certainly stone him" (Leviticus 24:16). They did not stone men for claiming to be old. They reached for stones because they understood that He had taken the divine name for Himself.

He Claimed Oneness with the Father

Two chapters later, at the Feast of the Dedication, the crowd surrounds Him in the temple. "How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly" (John 10:24). Jesus answers, "I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father's name, these testify of Me" (John 10:25). He speaks of His sheep and says, "I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand" (John 10:28). Then He says, "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30).

"The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him" (John 10:31).

Jesus asks them, "I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?" (John 10:32). Their answer is the clearest statement in the Gospels of what Jesus was claiming, and it comes from His enemies: "For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God" (John 10:33).

Notice what Jesus does not say. He does not answer, "You have misunderstood Me. I only meant that the Father and I agree." He points them again to the evidence: "If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father" (John 10:37-38).

Therefore the clearest witnesses that Jesus claimed to be God are not His disciples. They are the men who tried to kill Him for saying it.

He Received Worship

There is one more line of evidence, and an honest skeptic must deal with it. Jesus received worship.

To appreciate how significant that is, look at how others in Scripture responded when someone tried to worship them. When Cornelius fell at Peter's feet and worshiped him, "Peter raised him up, saying, 'Stand up; I too am just a man'" (Acts 10:25-26). When the apostle John fell down to worship at the feet of an angel, the angel stopped him at once: "Do not do that. I am a fellow servant of yours ... worship God" (Revelation 22:8-9). Faithful men and holy angels refuse worship immediately, because worship belongs to God alone.

Jesus Himself insisted on that. When Satan tempted Him in the wilderness, Jesus answered, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only" (Matthew 4:10). He knew the Law, and He held to it without exception.

And yet He accepted worship. After He walked on the water and calmed the wind, "those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, 'You are certainly God's Son!'" (Matthew 14:33). After His resurrection, Thomas, the disciple who had refused to believe without evidence, saw Him and said, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28). Jesus did not correct him. He did not raise him up as Peter raised Cornelius. He said, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed" (John 20:29).

Therefore, either Jesus broke the very command He quoted to Satan, or He received what was rightly His.

"Sitting at the Right Hand of Power"

Some skeptics answer all of this with a verse of their own. At His trial, Jesus told the high priest, "You shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power" (Mark 14:62). Stephen, as he was being stoned, said, "I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God" (Acts 7:56). Therefore, the skeptic says, Jesus is not God. He is next to God.

This objection depends on misunderstanding what Christians mean by "God," and that is why we began where we did. Christians do not claim that the Son is the Father. The Son is distinct from the Father, and so He can be with the Father and at His right hand. John opens his Gospel with exactly that: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). He was with God, and He was God. The right hand of God is what the Trinity would lead us to expect.

Look more closely at the trial. The high priest asked, "Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?" Jesus answered, "I am; and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven" (Mark 14:61-62). In that one sentence Jesus joined two Old Testament passages. The first is Psalm 110:1: "The LORD says to my Lord: 'Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.'" David calls the one seated at God's right hand "my Lord." The right hand is not a position of a lesser being standing nearby. It is the seat of shared rule and authority. The second is Daniel 7:13, where one "like a Son of Man" comes "with the clouds of heaven" to the Ancient of Days and receives an everlasting dominion. In the Old Testament, riding on the clouds belongs to God (Psalm 104:3; Isaiah 19:1).

The high priest's response settles what the claim meant. "Tearing his clothes, the high priest said, 'What further need do we have of witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy; how does it seem to you?' And they all condemned Him to be deserving of death" (Mark 14:63-64). No one tears his robes over a man who claims to be God's assistant.

Stephen's death confirms it. As the stones fell, "he called on the Lord and said, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!'" (Acts 7:59). On the cross, Jesus had prayed, "Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit" (Luke 23:46). Stephen prayed to the Son in the same words with which the Son prayed to the Father. Therefore the very verses offered to prove that Jesus is not God show the opposite. They show a Son who is distinct from the Father and who shares the Father's throne.

Lord, Liar, or Lunatic

C. S. Lewis observed that many people want to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher while rejecting His claim to be God. Lewis called that "the one thing we must not say." A man who claimed what Jesus claimed does not leave that option open to us. Only three remain.

The first is that He was a liar. He knew His claims were false, and He made them anyway. Then He was not a good teacher. He was a deceiver who allowed men to worship Him, and later to die for Him, on the strength of a lie He knew to be a lie.

The second is that He was a lunatic. He sincerely believed He was God, and He was wrong. Then He was not a good teacher either. A man who believes he is the eternal I AM is not suffering from a small error of judgment. Yet the teaching of Jesus is the opposite of what we would expect from such a mind. It is sober, clear, and searching, and it has been studied by careful thinkers for two thousand years.

The third is that He was who He said He was, the Lord.

There is a fourth option some will raise, that the claims are legend, words put into the mouth of a simple teacher by later followers. Chapter Four answered that. The Gospels were written while eyewitnesses were still living, and Paul passed on a creed of the church within a few years of the cross. More than that, the claims we have examined in this chapter are tied to the reactions of His enemies, the stones in John 8 and John 10 and the torn robes of the high priest. Legends do not usually record the opposition's charge sheet.

Remember the distinction between a preference and a claim of fact. "Jesus was a wise man" sounds like a safe preference. But Jesus did not offer Himself as a preference. He made a claim of fact about who He is, and that claim is either true or false. Some claims of fact carry life-and-death weight, and this one carries more than any other.

When the Skeptic Says "Good Teacher"

Most skeptics you know are not hostile to Jesus. Many of them admire Him. What they want is to keep Him at a respectful distance, as a wise man from long ago whose sayings are worth repeating. The "good teacher" answer allows them to do that.

When you meet that answer, do not begin by arguing the conclusion. Take the person to the texts. Read Mark 2 together and ask, "What did the scribes think He was claiming?" Read John 10:33 and ask, "Why did they want to stone Him?" Let the person discover that the claim is in the record, and that His enemies understood it before His friends did.

Then ask, "If He claimed this, which of the three fits the man you have just read about?"

Be prepared for the conversation to turn there. In John 10, the crowd had seen His works with their own eyes, and they still picked up stones. Evidence answers the head, but only surrender answers the heart. The trilemma does not force anyone to believe. It removes the comfortable middle ground. A good teacher can be admired from a distance. A Lord must be obeyed. Therefore the "good teacher" answer is often a heart answer dressed as a head answer, and you should pray for the person as much as you reason with them.

The Question That Will Not Go Away

Return now to the stolen truck. A man cannot forgive a wrong done to someone else. Yet Jesus looked at a paralyzed man He had never met and forgave his sins, as though every sin that man had committed had been committed against Him. It had been. He forgave as God forgives, because He is God.

Therefore the man on the pallet went home carrying more than his bed. The One who had the right to forgive him had forgiven him.

That same authority stands behind the promise of Isaiah 1:18, "Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow." The promise is only as good as the One who makes it. If Jesus is a liar, His forgiveness is worthless. If He is a lunatic, it is meaningless. If He is Lord, then His word to the paralytic is His word to everyone who comes to Him: "your sins are forgiven."

At Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asked His disciples, "But who do you say that I am?" (Mark 8:29). Peter answered, "You are the Christ." Every person who has ever heard of Jesus must answer that same question, and declining to answer is an answer of its own.

The Charge

Jesus forgave sins, took the divine name, claimed oneness with the Father, received worship, and claimed the throne at the Father's right hand. His friends worshiped Him for it, and His enemies tried to kill Him for it. Neither group thought He was merely a good teacher.

The evidence is in. The verdict is yours.

The Juror's Assignment: Ask one person Jesus' own question, "Who do you say that I am?" Phrase it your own way: "Can I ask you something? Who do you think Jesus actually was?" Then do the hard part. Say nothing. Listen all the way to the end.

Next: Chapter Six, Did Jesus Really Rise?