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Jesus demonstrated his deity – part 2

We saw that Jesus proved his deity by demonstrating what he knew – that he was not constrained in his knowledge as we are constrained.

We can also see that Jesus demonstrated his deity by forgiving people of their sins.  There are two occurrences where he did this in the gospels, but for this study, we will focus on just one of those occurrences - Mark 2:1-12.

In this story we are in a location where crowds had gathered to hear Jesus and as a result there were people desperate to see him who simply couldn’t. get to him.  Four men had a friend who was paralyzed who wanted to help him get to Jesus in order for Jesus to heal him.  When they got to where Jesus was they decided that since they couldn’t get through the crowd they would take their friend over the crowd and drop him in front of Jesus – through the roof.

They did this, they got above Jesus and removed part of the roof, and then dropped the man down in front of Jesus to ask him to heal him.

Oddly Jesus doesn’t immediately heal the man.  Instead  he said to the man “Your sins are forgiven”.  There are a number of interesting reasons why Jesus may have started by forgiving the mans sins. 

Firstly one of the Jewish thoughts of the day (and it is a corollary to that which is held by proponents of the health, wealth and prosperity gospel today) is that sickness, disease and suffering are punishment from God, and the corollary is that prosperity, health and success are a blessing of the Lord. We see this thinking in John 9:1-3 where the disciples ask who sinned that the man should be born blind – him or his parents to which the answer was neither – the purpose of the mans suffering was that “the works of God might be displayed in him”.

The implications for this are staggering.  This man, if subscribed to this philosophy (and given that was what the rabbi’s taught, this was likely), he would have lived his life performing penance for his sin, feeling guilt and shame at his situation.  In addition to this, he is now present before the Holy Christ, so these feelings would have been greatly magnified, for which forgiveness is a great cure.

It is critical to quickly note here that physical infirmities are not necessarily related to sin.  When the apostle Paul was afflicted with a “thorn in his flesh” the Lord revealed to him that “My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:7-10).  That is that the purpose of Paul’s affliction (the nature of which we are not exactly sure of) was to cause him to depend more fully on Christ, rather than on himself.  Often our own physical issues have the same purpose – to cause us to depend on the Lord or seek him more fervently than we otherwise would.

The second reason that may be behind why Jesus decided to forgive the mans sins is that ones sin is a far more important issue than ones bodily condition.  This illustrated clearly in Matt 5:29 - “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.  For it is better that you lose your one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.”  The point of this passage is not to prescribe a behavior, but to emphasis the seriousness of sin on the tail of the subtleties of sin (the subtleties being dealt with in Matt 5:27-28).

The third and the key reason that Jesus forgave the mans sin is that he wanted to make a point to those who were there.  The point was simple - that he did indeed have the authority to forgive sins. 

When Jesus forgave the mans sin, the question immediately entered the mind of the Pharisees who were there ” who can forgive sin except God alone?”.  The Old Testament is clear about this.  In Ps 51:4 David said “against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight”.  In this verse we have the very definition of sin – that which is evil in Gods sight.  What is evil in Gods sight?  Anything that violates his righteous character. 

Likewise, given sin is only against God, so is forgiveness only available from the one who has been sinned against.  Dan 9:9 says “to the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness” and Micah 7:18 says “who is a god like you, pardoning iniquities and passing over transgression for for the remnant of his inheritance?”  Not only is it only God who can forgive, because its only him who has been offended, but as Micah points out, what other god is there who forgives?  If we survey man made religions, we generally find that other gods exact some kind of penance in exchange for sin, however, the Lord does not – there is only forgiveness through faith in Jesus or eternal punishment for sin.

Thus, the Jewish listeners were correct in their thinking that only God can forgive sins – and Jesus was claiming to be God by forgiving this mans sins.

However Jesus’ point in this passage is to demonstrate that he is in fact God.  Thus to demonstrate that he could forgive sins, Jesus healed the man of his paralysis.  The healing of this man was instant, complete and compelling.

The man entered the room in a state of sin, completely dependent on his peers for transport (and no doubt a great many other things) and left forgiven of his sins and walking, carrying his own mat! Such a complete transformation can only be ascribed to a miracle – specifically the miraculous work of God done in a short time. 

In this, Jesus showed not only that he had complete power over physical infirmities, but also that he had complete power over sin, and by so doing, he proved that the claim he made about himself – that he is God – is true.

Jesus didn’t just demonstrate his power over sin and infirmities.  Next we will investigate a couple of other things that demonstrate the deity of Christ.

Jesus Christ is God – part 2

Having seen that the Old Testament clearly showed that the Messiah would be God himself, we now move on to see what Jesus said about himself. 

Again, we covered this in a little detail in last weeks study, so we will start there and build it out a little.

If we start again in John 8:53-58 where we find the Pharisees asking Jesus who he made himself out to be – or asking the question “who are you?”.

Jesus answered the question by allusion rather than directly, but his allusion caused those who heard him to understand the he was saying that he saw Abraham and understood what Abraham thought of the day (time) that Jesus came.  This caused them to ask him “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” (John 8:57).  Jesus answered this question directly saying “before Abraham was, I am”.

When Jesus said this he was saying a number of things.  Firstly he was saying he existing when Abraham was on earth, something that no mere man could claim due to the amount of time between when Jesus said this and when Abraham was alive.  Secondly, (and most obviously to the Jews) by using the words “I am” with regard to himself, he was clearly alluding to the appearance of the Angel of the Lord to Moses in Ex 3:14-15 when the Lord called himself “I am” when asked by Moses who he should say sent him.

By doing this, Jesus was saying to the Jewish hearers that he was the same person who called Moses, the same God.  Jesus was calling himself God, and his hearers understood that this was exactly what he was saying.  The Jewish reaction was to pick up stones to stone him.  Why?  The punishment for blasphemy was death by stoning (Lev 24:16), and this is what the Jews started to do when they heard him say this. 

So Jesus claimed clearly to be the God of the Old Testament, the one who called Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, the one who was pre-existent and who is self-existent (John 5:26).

We also see that Jesus claimed to be the same as God the Father.  We see this clearly in John 14:9 where in response to Philip saying “show us the Father and it is enough for us” Jesus said “Have I been with you so long and still you do not know me Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”  Philip wanted to see God the Father and Jesus said clearly that he was the Father and that if you have seen him you have seen the Father.  His claim is that He and the Father are one and the same.

We also see that in John 17:11 when praying, Jesus asked  the Father “keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one“.  Jesus was again clearly saying to God the Father that he and the Father were one.

In case there is any doubt about this we have another clear passage in John 10:22-38 where Jesus is responding directly to the Pharisees questions about who he is.  At the end of his explanation he says “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).  To this his hearers picked up stones to stone him again and Jesus asks them why they are picking up stones to stone him – to which the Pharisees answered that they are stoning him “for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God”.  The Jews had no misconceptions about who Jesus said he was, it was abundantly clear to them that Jesus believed himself to be God.

C.S. Lewis famously wrote on this point in Mere Christianity that no normal person calls himself God or even makes himself God.  If a person makes himself out to be God, one of three possibilities exist as an explanation for that claim – these explanations are that the person is either a lunatic (suffering from a irrational state of reality), a liar (the devil masquerading as good) or he is who he says he is – Lord.  Jesus is not easy to dismiss as a lunatic, none of the historical representation of him indicate that his grasp on reality was faulty – if anything his grasp on reality was greater than anyone else’s.  The argument for him being a liar doesn’t stand up as this would mean that the devil was working against himself in the life of Jesus as he cast out demons and resisted the devil on a number of occasion - which is clearly counter productive for achieving the devils ends.  This means that there is only one logical conclusion for the one who calls himself Lord and is neither a lunatic or a liar.

However, not only did Jesus say that he was God, but he showed convincingly that he was God.  Next week we will examine in detail how Jesus showed himself to be God.

Jesus demonstrated his deity – part 1

We’ve seen that the Old Testament claimed that the messiah would be God and we’ve also seen that Jesus himself claimed to be God, but not only was it something that Jesus verbally claimed, but something that he demonstrated as well.

There were a number of ways Jesus demonstrated his deity and confirmed his claim, in this article we will look at one of these, and for the next few days we will continue to examine some others.

Firstly we can see that Jesus demonstrated that he was who he said he was by what he knew.  There are a number of instances in scripture where we find Jesus dealing with a situation in a way that was unique to him.

One example is the way he dealt with the lose-lose traps of the Pharisees.  In Mark 12:13-17 Jesus is asked by the Pharisees whether they should pay taxes to Caesar or not.  This was a trick question.

Ever since the Romans had invaded Judea, the Jewish leaders (and many of the people) had been vehemently opposed to their rule.  The patriotic spirit of the Jews was strong, and this opposition probably served to solidify their picture of a Messiah who would deliver them from their enemies.  Anyone who sided with the Romans was considered a traitor.  Thus tax collectors were looked down on as the worst of the Jewish people because they had traded their country for money.  Part of this opposition included paying Roman taxes – this was something that most Jews did, however they did it very reluctantly and due to the harsh punishment for not paying taxes.

So when the Jewish leaders asked Jesus if they should pay taxes or not, to answer yes would make him a traitor to the Jewish nation, but to answer no would mean that he would be encouraging people to violate the law and rebel against the civil authorities of the day.

Jesus knew that this was what they were doing, and that they themselves paid taxes (and thus were hypocrites themselves – Mark 12:15), had the ability to help them see clearly the solution to the problem.  When he had a coin (a denarius is a coin representing about an average days wages) he asked them who’s inscription was on it – “Caesars” was the answer, so Jesus instructed them to “give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17).

Thus as a result of this the crowds marveled at him.  Those listening knew the no win nature of the question, so to see Jesus give a truthful answer without hypocrisy and without rebellion was truly astonishing.

There are even more compelling examples of the knowledge of Jesus.  For example in John 1:43-51 we read about the calling of Philip and Nathanel.  The interesting thing about the call of Nathanel is not that he was called, but how he was called.  Philip told Nathanel that he had “found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote…”.  So Nathanel was convinced to go and see Jesus, and as he was coming Jesus looked at him as he approached and said “Behold an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” (John 1:47).

It is evident from Nathanels response and Jesus’ response to that that Jesus and Nathanel had never met – Nathanel responded “How do you know me?”.  In making the statement that he made, Jesus had claimed to not only know who Nathanel was, but also to know something about him – specifically that he was an honest person.  Not only this, but Jesus had also obviously not been around when Philip called him, otherwise Nathanel would have noticed him and have responded differently. 

Nathanel was obviously surprised and asked how Jesus knew him and the answer that Jesus gave was revealing.

“Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you”. This is obviously not the standard statement that the average man in the street would make. 

Jesus was effectively saying that while Jesus was in one place, Nathanel and Philip were in another place, and yet Jesus could see them. To do this Jesus would have to be able to deal with issues of moving through time and space which scientists are still relatively clueless about today.  In short there is no way Jesus could have seen Nathanel when Philip called him unless he was God – which is exactly the point.

Nathanels response to Jesus claiming to see him under the fig tree was to immediately recognize that he was in the presence of the Messiah – the Son of God.  In other words, Nathanel understood what Jesus had said about himself and verbally recognized this before Jesus. Jesus further confirms his thinking by referring to things Nathanel would see as he followed Jesus.

Other examples of where Jesus demonstrated supernatural knowledge include John 4:1-42 where Jesus told the woman about things in her history that he simply could not have known unless he had a long history with the woman (which from their conversation was certainly not apparent).  Jesus knew that the woman had been married several times and that the man she was living with was not her husband.  The woman then went and told the people in her town that Jesus “told me all I ever did” (John 4:29).

We also find in John 2:23-25 that Jesus “knew all people” (John 2:24) and “knew what was in man” (John 2:25).

Based on these passages, Jesus had knowledge about people that no other man has ever had, he exhibited his knowledge in a number of recorded occasions, and clearly demonstrated that he was God by what he knew.

Next we will examine the power of Jesus and how he demonstrated his deity by showing the power of God.

Jesus Christ is God – part 1

This week we started to take a look at the deity of Christ – that is the fact that Jesus Christ is God.

We started this study by looking at what the Old Testament says about the Messiah and looking at how the New Testament references these passages with regard to Christ.  Note that this build on our study from last week on  the pre-existence of Christ.

Lets start by looking at some of the prophecies the Old Testament made about the messiah and see how the New Testament confirms that Jesus fulfilled these.

Firstly we have a number of passages that speak of Messiah being the Son of God. Ps 2:7 says “The Lord said to me ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you”. In 2 Sam 7:12-14 the Lord promises to David that he will “raise up offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throng of his kingdom forever.  I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son”.  Since David there has not been a king of Israel who has established an eternal kingdom, and the simple reason for this is that this was a prophecy of the Christ.

The writer of Hebrews states plainly that both of these were prophecies referring to Christ – the Son of God and references these verses in Heb 1:5.  This passage in Hebrews is about demonstrating that Christ is the Son of God, and in verse five the author is making it clear that when God said these things he was not just talking about angels (who are often referred to as the sons of God – cf Gen 6:2, Job 1:6), but about the Son of God – through whom the world was made (Heb 1:2-3). 

We also see the Old Testament clearly saying that the Christ would be God, as we saw last time verses such as Isa 40:3 which references John the Baptist who was to “prepare the way of the Lord”, in which we find that the one who the way is being prepared for is Jehovah the Lord.

In addition the promise of a son being born in Isa 9:6 declares clearly who the Son will be – “his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” – names which cannot possibly mean anything other than God himself.  Furthermore Isa 7:4 says “the Lord himself will give you a sign.  Behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” – Immanuel means “God with us” – another indication of who this baby would be.  Matthew recorded the fulfillment of this particular verse at the birth of Christ in Mat 1:23 further linking the old testament Messiah with Jesus Christ.

What is really interesting is that there are a number of passages in the Old Testament that the Jews in Jesus’ day knew were Messianic (i.e. they referred to Christ).  There are even instances where the Jewish leaders of the day referred to this verses with regard to Jesus Christ, but they never connected the pieces and believed in Him.

For instance in Micah 5:2 says two key things about the Messiah – firstly that he would be God – “from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days”, and secondly that this person would come from Bethlehem – “But you, O Bethlehem…”.  The Jewish leaders confirmed this as a prophecy of where the Messiah was to be born when Jesus was born.   In response to the arrival of the wise men and there questioning Herod about where the “king of the Jews” had been born Herod in Matt 2:3-6 sends for the Jewish leaders and asks them where the Messiah was to be born.

Herod would not have wanted the Jewish leaders to know about their king being born, so it is unlikely that he revealed to them why he had summoned them or anything about the wise men or their trip, but he probably just asked them that one question and passed the information on to the wise men in order to learn more. 

However, in spite of this, we have confirmation from the Jewish leaders of the day that they believed the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, and it was so.  This same verse they believed was Messianic and also confirms the person of the Messiah, leading us to conclude that the Jews themselves held that the Messiah would be God.

Ps 110:1 is another passage that speaks of the Messiah, which was held to be Messianic by the Jewish leaders of Jesus day.  This verse was written by David and says “The Lord says to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool”.  Jesus used this verse with the Jews of the day to demonstrate that not only was the Messiah the son of David, but he was also greater than David.  How much greater than David?  The word Lord in this verse gives us a clue.  The first occurrence of the word Lord here is the word Yahweh – the primary name for God used over 6000 times in the Old Testament.  The second occurrence of the term Lord is the same word used in Ps 114:7 - “tremble o earth at the presence of the Lord’.  Clearly Ps 114:7 is referring to God, as are most of the other occurrences of this word (it refers to one who is sovereign).  Jesus used this verse to silence the accusing questions of the Jewish leaders by demonstrating that their logic about the Messiah did not make sense, but to do this, they had to agree with Him that this passage was Messianic (see Matt 22:41-46 for details).

From these passages it is abundantly clear that the Old Testament confirms plainly that the Messiah was God.  We’ve also seen that the New Testament confirms that Jesus was the one referred to by the Old Testament prophecies, and that the Jewish leaders of the day confirmed that Jesus met the requirements of this Messiah.

Next we will take a look at what Jesus said about himself and how he began to demonstrate what he’d claimed about himself was true.