A popular theme among those who view the Bible skeptically is that Jesus never thought of Himself as divine.
It was Jesus’ disciples who reached that conclusion in the years following His death, such critics argue. Jesus, they say, always viewed Himself as a man.
What Jesus thought of Himself is important. As Christians, we are obviously interested in what the early church thought of Jesus of Nazareth. However, our primary interest is in what Jesus thought about Himself and revealed to His followers. After all, our faith is in Jesus, not in the beliefs of the disciples about Him.
The only place we find evidence of what Jesus thought about Himself is in the Bible, God’s holy Word. More specifically, we find evidence of Jesus’ view of Himself in the Gospels, for the Gospels are the story of Jesus.
All four Gospels unanimously testify that Jesus believed He was God’s incomparable Son, standing in God’s place with divine authority and right and determining the destiny of human beings. In short, Jesus knew Himself to be the Messiah, or Christ.
Consider the story of the paralytic recorded in Mark 2: 1–12. Verse 5 says when Jesus saw the man’s faith, Jesus said, “My son, your sins are forgiven.” The crowd was aghast. Only God can forgive sin, they said.
Jesus asked if it were easier to forgive sin or to make the man able to walk. Then Jesus commanded the man to rise and walk. When the paralytic obeyed, the crowd was astonished.
In this act, Jesus revealed Himself as having the power to heal both physical and spiritual disease. He could make the paralytic walk, and He could forgive the man’s sin.
Without declaring Himself to be divine in so many words, our Lord demonstrated His divinity when He claimed the right to forgive sin.
Matthew 11:27 and Luke 10:22 record Jesus saying almost identical words. Jesus says that He alone knows God, because Jesus is the Son and only the Son knows the Father. Jesus says that because He is the Son, the Father has handed all things over to Him.
Then Jesus adds another thought. The only way anyone can ever know God the Father is for Him — Jesus — to make the Father known. One of the roles of the Son is to make the Father known.
This time Jesus’ words are clear. He and the Father are of the same substance. They are Father and Son. Jesus has all the power of the Father, because the Father has given all power to the Son. They know each other in ways not possible in any other relationship.
John reinforces this teaching with an incident recorded in John 14. Jesus announces to His disciples that He is going away. Philip responds, “Lord, show us the Father.”
Jesus looks at Philip and asks, “Have I been so long with you and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip?”
Know what, one might ask. Jesus then declares, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.”
Again, there is no missing the point. Matthew and Luke record the unique relationship of Jesus expressed in His own words. John records Jesus explaining that They are one. “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.”
John is not finished with the relationship of the Father and the Son. In John 17:5, the writer quotes Jesus as praying, “And now, glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.”
The Son and the Father have a unique relationship. So unique is it, that when one sees the Son, one sees the Father. That relationship is not confined to the earthly existence of Jesus of Nazareth, it is a relationship enjoyed before creation itself.
Obviously, Jesus thought of Himself as divine. His own words taken from all four Gospels leave no other conclusion. But there is more.
Following His arrest, Jesus was taken to the council of the Jewish high priest. There He was asked, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” Jesus answered, “I am” (Mark 14:61–62). There was no reason to hide the truth or keep it secret any longer. Our Lord’s “hour” had come.
In Matthew 16, Peter had uttered the great confession “Thou are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” But Jesus had warned the disciples not to tell the masses that He was the long-sought Son of God.
But now Jesus, Himself, declared it for the religious establishment to hear with their own ears.
Jesus did not stop there. Jesus not only said He was the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God, He told the high priest he would see Jesus sitting at “the right hand of Power,” a reference to God Himself. And Jesus would be seen again, “coming with the clouds of heaven.” This was a fulfillment of the vision of Daniel 7.
There in the middle of the elite of the Jewish religion, Jesus acknowledged that He was divine. He was the Son of God. He would ascend to the right hand of God Himself. He would be given dominion, glory and an everlasting kingdom that would not pass away. All would be revealed on the clouds of heaven. He alone had the power to make the Father known, and He alone had the power to forgive sin.
No one who heard our Lord’s words misunderstood His meaning that night. Neither should we.
When the writer of the Gospel of John wrote, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:1, 14),” the writer was not making up a fantasy. He was reflecting the teaching of Jesus about Who He was and Who He is.
The Bible is clear. Jesus knew Himself as God’s Son and our Savior. I pray that we know Him that way, too.
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