Did Jesus Claim to be God?

“So they picked up stones to throw at [Jesus]...” (John 8:59). The crowd gathered around Him wanted to stone Him to death. Why?

This came at the end of a long debate between the religious leaders and Jesus. In the end, the debate came down to the question of who Jesus was. Jesus said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad” (John 8:56). This shocked them because Abraham lived two thousand years before their time. So, they asked, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham” (John 8:57)? To this Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58). These words triggered the religious leaders to pick up stones to kill Him. Why?

Was it for Jesus’ bad grammar--“...before Abraham was, I AM”? No! They knew exactly what Jesus meant. When God called Moses to deliver Israel from Egypt, He said to him, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14). “I AM” was the name of Israel’s God (YHWH). Jesus didn’t make a grammatical mistake when He said, “...before Abraham was, I AM”: He was claiming to be the “I AM” who sent Moses to deliver Israel. The religious leaders knew exactly what He meant, so they picked up stones to kill Him for blasphemy, making Himself equal with God.

Jesus also famously said, “I AM the good shepherd” (John 10:11). He was echoing a famous Psalm: “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1), which can be translated, “YHWH [I AM] is my shepherd....” Here, too, Jesus claimed to be the (triune) God of Israel.

In the end, this was the reason that Jesus was condemned to die by the religious leaders: “And the high priest said to him, ‘I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.’ Then the high priest tore his robes and said, ‘He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. What is your judgment?’ They answered, ‘He deserves death’” (Matt. 26:63-66).

You may find it hard to believe that Jesus is the eternal Son of God. Some claim that Jesus never claimed to be God. That may sound plausible, but we must ask what their sources are. One thing that cannot be denied is that the message of Christianity wholly depends on Jesus’ identity as the Son of God. Whatever Jesus taught and did, including dying on the cross for the sins of His people, matters only because of who He claimed to be. No mere human being, however brilliant or devout, is worthy to take away the sin of the world by his death. But John the Baptist testified regarding Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

Did the disciples make up the whole thing? A historian pointed out how unlikely that is. Who in the right mind would present a crucified “criminal” as the Savior of the world? Also, Jesus’ early disciples were all Jews. The central tenet of the Jewish religion is “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deut. 6:4). It went against the grain of their whole being to believe in the Son of God, who is equal in power and glory with God the Father. As Jews, they could not accept it—unless it was true. When they preached, they saw themselves as eyewitnesses, testifying in the tribunal of God itself. So, when pressed to recant by the religious leaders who killed Jesus, they replied, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:19-20)—the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. No one has condemned the New Testament as a work of lunatics. How will you respond to their testimony? Your eternity depends on it. We hope you will accept their testimony and put your trust in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and your able Savior and Lord.