By: K. B. Napier

When a JW says on your own doorstep that Jesus never claimed to be God, what do you say? It is very likely that, along with countless other Christians, you do not know how to stand against such a confident claim. I say this to you in humility, because I used to get caught myself, many times!

Is the JW correct? Is it true that Jesus never claimed to be God – at least not in a way you can repeat with equal confidence? No, the JW – and anyone else who says it for that matter – is completely wrong. Jesus DID say he as God, on many occasions!

In this Article we will look at the ways Jesus Christ declared Himself to be God. Not just God incarnate, but God in all His glory. To recognise times when Jesus said he was God, we have to read scripture with the time it was written in mind, because the Old Testament contains Hebraic idioms and structure, whilst the New Testament contains idiom peculiar to that era. Once this easy and open code is cracked, we can see (as perfectly as did the Jews of the time) that Jesus said, many times, that He was God! Why do you think the Sanhedrin wanted to kill Him off?

Be confident in the declaration of your faith, my friends. You can be confident because scripture says so. That is, God Himself says so. In this is your confidence...not in clever arguments. A simple walk through some Biblical texts will clinch the matter...

This text, though not spoken by Jesus Christ Himself, came from God the Father through the ‘angel of the Lord’ (verse 20). He said “...they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.” That text tells us Jesus was not just the Messiah, but was God Himself. The name is from the Hebrew ‘Immanuw’el meaning either ‘God with us’ or ‘with us is God’. In the Old Testament it was used to describe the Messiah born of a virgin, God as Man.

The complete book of Matthew is known as the ‘The book of the generation of Jesus Christ...’. That is, ‘Jesus the Messiah (God)’. Note that in the text the title ‘Christ’ (or Messiah) precedes the list of human genealogy, showing its prime importance.

Matthew 3:9

John the Baptist, called by Jesus the greatest prophet of all time, said of Jesus that he had all divine power. This is what he meant when he said “Whose fan (is) in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

He was telling this to the Jews, who would have recognised the language, the metaphor, of the One who has the ‘fan’ as being God. They knew what it meant because they knew their scripture at that time. It was Old Testament Hebraic idiom referring to the way God will gather up His people to be with Him but will destroy all who reject or deny Him. Thus, the Jews of Jesus’ time were told by John the Baptist that Jesus was God.

Matthew 4:3-11

This famous passage, about Jesus in the desert being tempted by the devil, is not just a romantic story, nor is it just the devil trying to cause Jesus as a man to fall. In the passage Jesus says that He was God.

The question asked by the devil in verse 3 is rhetorical He knew that Jesus was God and he was not questioning if He was God. Rather, he was testing Him AS God! “If thou be the Son of God...” then do this, or that to prove it (knowing that if Jesus did what he asked, then He would have lost His authority). The term ‘Son of God’ means far more than just ‘son’, because the Son IS God.

The devil persists in trying to get Jesus to do his bidding, and Jesus replied: “It is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” (verse 7). He was referring to God as a Trinity (including Himself), not only to the Father, for Satan was trying to tempt (or test) Jesus on this earth. He distinctly says He was the Lord God in this verse. In verse 10 Jesus underlines His being God by saying “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”  This was a remarkable piece of verbal structure, for it does two things – it tells Satan that Jesus (as Man) could not worship a creature because only God is to be worshiped and, it tells him that he must only worship Him, Jesus Christ, for He is God.

In the Old Testament – Isaiah is crammed full of it – there are often dual-purpose texts, where the words refer to what is happening there and then, and to something in the future, thus being prophecy in both its main meanings. In this text, then, Jesus made a dual statement – that God only is to be worshiped and, that He was/is God. This is not ‘spiritualising’ the text. It is there in the words themselves.

Matthew 6:33

In the New Testament ‘kingdom of God’ is synonymous with ‘kingdom of Christ’ or ‘my kingdom’. Later in His earthly life Jesus, referring to this kingdom, said that His kingdom was not flesh and blood, thus making His ‘kingdom’ equal to and synonymous with, the ‘kingdom of God’. Such references by Jesus would not have been lost on the Jewish hearers, many of whom were spies of the Sanhedrin or the priests themselves.

Matthew 12:3-8

When talking about David entering the temple and eating the shewbread, He said “in this place is (one) greater than the Temple.” What did He mean? What He said was very plain to the Jews who were listening. They knew that the temple was God’s earthly abode, for He visited the Chief Priest in the inner sanctum. Thus Jesus told them that the temple was for God, yet He was greater than God’s house. This could have only one meaning for the Jews – that Jesus was God! Then, calling Himself the ‘Son of Man’ (verse 8) He said “the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

Only a man with a death-wish would utter such words, for the Jews would instantly say he was being blasphemous. In those words, Jesus was saying that He was God, for the ‘Lord of the Sabbath’ was the God Who created the seventh day. How do we know this meaning can be applied? The word for ‘Lord’ begin with a capital ‘L’. Thus it means God. Also, ‘Lord’ (Gk kurios) interprets as ‘he to whom a thing belongs’ or ‘over which he has the power to decide’. It also means the ‘possessor and disposer of a thing’, ‘the sovereign’, ‘God’ or ‘the Messiah’. It is from the root kuros, meaning ‘supremacy’.

To the Jewish audiences, then, Jesus’ words were nothing short of mind-blowing, for He was claiming to be God Himself! Jesus was saying that He owned and could dispose of, the Sabbath, which was instigated by God the Creator. The Jews knew that the kurios (Who owned the Sabbath) was God. Therefore, they knew that Jesus was calling Himself God.

Matthew 12:24-28

The Pharisees said that Jesus cast out demons by the power of (or, under the yolk of) Satan. Jesus took them to task and said that if He cast out demons by the power of God “then the kingdom of God is come unto you...” (verse 28). To those ruling Jews Jesus was talking blasphemy, for He was plainly telling them that His power was of God and that the very presence of God was amongst them in His own person.

Matthew 16:16

There is an equation in that phrase – the children (note: this is not about children as such, but about adults who have the same quality of trust as children) are to go to Jesus, Who, according to the text, is the ‘owner’ of the kingdom. This must be so, because otherwise He could not have the authority to say what He said. Thus, He was saying that He was the one Who rules that kingdom – God.

Notice how even the demons recognised Jesus as the Son of God (and therefore as God)! They spoke out loud on many occasions before the crowds, though Jesus did not wish everyone to know at that time.

Peter said to Jesus that He was “The Christ of God”. Many people realised that this was so. In the following verses Jesus told spoke of Himself as the only way to receive eternal life. He also indicated that to refuse Him was to be ‘cast away’. Only God could do that. So, Jesus told the disciples Hew as God in the wording of His teaching. In verse 26 He said that Hew as coming in His ‘own glory’ - a glory equal to that glory given to God the Father.

 Luke 18:19

This text repeats Matthew 19:17 and says that Jesus is God. In Luke the Matthew text is expanded, for we read “Why callest thou me good? None (is) good, save one, (that is), God.”  So, only God is ‘good’ – and here He acknowledges the statement made by the young man, thus saying He was indeed God.

Luke 22:69-71

Jesus said:

Evidently, Jesus had just said to them that He was indeed the Son of God, God Himself, which explains their reaction:

Luke 23:42

The penitent thief recognised Jesus as God, for he equated the kingdom with Him:

Notice how he refers top Jesus as ‘Lord’ (kurios) and then said that it was His kingdom. As this kingdom is also known as the ‘kingdom of God’ it meant that Jesus’ kingdom was the very same kingdom. Jesus did not repudiate the statement but said that the thief would be with Him.

Again, Jesus did not utter these words Himself whilst on this earth, but as God He led John to say them by His spirit. They are some of the most profound words ever spoken:

Jesus is called the ‘Word’...and here He is called ‘God’. Earlier we saw that the Pharisees knew that only God could forgive a man. In John 1:29 John the Baptist reinforces this by saying that Jesus was the Lamb of God, Who could take away sin. He therefore called Him God in front of thousands of Jews. Jesus did not reject what he said (verses 29 and 34). In verse 49 Nathanael called Jesus the Son of God, the King of Israel.

Earlier in the text, we are told that Jesus imparts the Holy Spirit to men. In 3:34 we read “for God giveth not the Spirit by measure (unto him).” In this complex text, we are being told that God gave the Spirit to God (as Jesus Christ). In earlier texts we saw that Jesus Christ gave the Spirit. Therefore, Jesus Christ must also be God...and this was being preached of Jesus by others.

Readers might think I am merely extrapolating that the Jewish leaders thought He called Himself God. Again, I repeat, that they do not understand the ‘Jewishness’ of what Jesus was saying. To the Jews, and to their spiritual leaders, Jesus plainly stated that He was God. This is directly concluded in this text:

Jesus accepted this judgement, for He then said (verse 21):

So, Jesus said that only God could quicken (bring alive) the dead, and that He (Jesus Christ) brought alive whom He wishes to bring alive. That is, God and Christ are the same. In this He clearly equates Himself with God. In John 6:46, again using Hebraic terminology, Jesus again says that He is God, for HE tells men that no man has seen the Father except for  “he which is of God”. The Greek can render this as ‘he that is the son’. Note that the word for ‘Father’ and ‘God’ are the same word, pater. Just as Jesus and the Father are one, so is ‘God’ and the Father. ‘God’ is a generic name for the Trinity.

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