Claimed to be God

Read Jeremiah 14

Read John 8

I've read in places that some people are convinced that Jesus never claims to be God in the Bible, but it is only his followers that assign that status to him. I think these people have never read John 8, or just outright reject it. Here and elsewhere in John (like chapter 5, for example), Jesus makes it abundantly clear that he is God.

Even if someone might not understand what Jesus is saying, they can understand that the people of his day knew what he was claiming. They weren't going to stone him for no reason, folks! They understood he was claiming to be God. And they didn't agree with the claim. In their minds, it was blasphemy, an offense against God worthy of death.

Yes, Jesus repeatedly claims his divinity, saying over and over, "I AM HE" - a phrase reminiscent of God's revelation to himself to Moses in Exodus 3 "I AM WHO I AM" or "I AM" for short. And at the very end of chapter 8, when the people stoop down to pick up stones, Jesus had said, "Before Abraham was, I AM." Here Jesus claims to have existed even before Abraham. And not just that, but the use of the present form of to be (I AM) is a claim that he is eternal. Yes, here is the Great I AM, the one who was and is and is to come. Jesus is Yahweh! Yahweh is the personal name that God reveals in the Old Testament (like in Exodus 3 to Moses, for example). Yahweh is a word closely related to the verb "to be." He is the one who is.

Yes, Jesus most definitely is claiming to be God here. And what kind of a God? A God who speaks a stern warning: "I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I
AM HE you will die in your sins" (v. 24). What stronger warning do we need from the Eternal God, Creator of All, Judge of the Living and the Dead?

What kind of a God? We can be sure that he is also a merciful God! "If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death" (v. 51). "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life" (v. 12). "If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death" (v. 52).

Yes, this is a merciful God who in love is willing to go to the cross and sacrifice his own weak, human flesh for us. God dies for us. And rises that we might have eternal life. Let us rejoice, and hear the words he spoke to the adulterous woman also in our ears, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more" (v. 11).

Thanks be to God!

Pray:

O Lord, be merciful to me, a poor sinful being. Thank you for making me a new person through Baptism. Now make me your light in the world. Grant that I may remain faithful to your Word until my last hour. Amen.

Study with me tomorrow,

Pastor Jon

Soli Deo Gloria!