IS JESUS GOD (4) did Jesus claim to be God?

                                           IS JESUS GOD?


                 part four

                                                       (copied from
              Y-Jesus.com)

             DID JESUS CLAIM
                 TO BE GOD?


So what is it that convinces many scholars that Jesus claimed to be God?  Author John Piper explains that Jesus claimed power which uniquely belonged to God.

".....Jesus'  friends and enemies were staggered again and again by what He said and did. He would be walking down the road seemingly like any other man, then turn and say something like, 'Before Abraham was, I am.'  Or,  'If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father,. Or, very calmly, after being accused of blasphemy, He would say  'the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins.' 

 To the dead He might simply say 'Come forth' or  'Rise up' and they would obey. To the storms on the sea , He would say, 'Be still'  and to a loaf of bread He would say, 'Become a thousand meals,' and it was done immediately.

But what did Jesus mean by such statements?  Is it possible that Jesus is merely a prophet like Moses, Elijah or Daniel? Even a superficial reading
 of the gospel reveals that Jesus claimed to be Someone  more than a prophet. No other prophet had made such claims about himself, in fact no other prophet ever put himself in God's place.

Some argue that Jesus never explicitly said, "I am God."  It is true that He never stated the exact words, "I am God."  However, Jesus never explicitly said "I am a man,"  or "I am a prophet." Yet Jesus was undoubtedly human, and His followers considered Him a prophet, like Moses and Elijah, so we cannot rule out Jesus being divine just because he didn't say those exact words, anymore than we can say He wasn't a prophet.


 In fact Jesus' statements      about Himself                      contradict the notion that He was simply a   great man, or a prophet.      On more than one                occasion Jesus referred  to Himself as "God's Son"   


Before we examine Jesus' claims, it is important to understand  that He made them in the context of the Jewish belief in one God (monotheism). No faithful Jew would ever believe in more than one God. And Jesus believed in the one God, praying to his father as "The only true God."

But in that same prayer, Jesus spoke of always having existed with His Father. And when Phillip asked Jesus to show them the Father, Jesus said, "Have I been with you so long and you do not know Me? Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father."

So, the question is, was Jesus claiming to be the Hebrew God Who created the Universe?

next post 8th March