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Lectio The Case for Jesus: Did Jesus Claim to Be God?
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What answers can we give skeptics who think that the early Christians exaggerated stories about Jesus and made him out to be something he was not? Dr. Pitre takes an in-depth look at three particular New Testament passages that show Jesus’s revelation of his divinity and his disciples’ understanding that Jesus is the one true God.
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Welcome back, everyone, to session six of this Lectio Bible study on Jesus, the biblical and historical evidence for Christ. And now we're turning to what might be the most important topic of all, and that is the divinity of Jesus Christ. It's one thing to say that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah or even that he fulfilled the prophecies of the Messiah, but because if you know the Old Testament, you'll know that the word Messiah, mashiach, just means anointed one. And it could be used for very human kings like King Saul or King David or King Solomon. Right? So the fact that Jesus claims to be the Messiah and fulfills the prophecies of the Messiah doesn't go far enough to take us all the way to what the Christian faith professes, which is that Jesus, the Messiah, is also the divine son of God, that he is God incarnate, God made man. And so in this session, what we're going to do is we're going to look at the question of whether Jesus claimed to be God. Now, you might think, well, that's a silly question. Of course Jesus claimed to be God. I mean, everybody knows that. And in fact, years ago in the 1950s, C.S. lewis, the famous Christian apologist and writer, a very brilliant, brilliant man, wrote a famous book called Mere Christianity and in which he made an important explanation or argument for his own conversion to Christianity from agnosticism based on Jesus claim to be God. It's called the liar, lunatic, or Lord argument. Has anyone ever heard about this argument? Yeah, I read this for the first time when I was an undergraduate student and I found it very compelling. So what I want to do is begin our discussion of Jesus divinity by quoting Lewis and then saying why Lewis argument doesn't work. It doesn't work in our day as easily as it did in his own. And I'll try to say why we need to not correct it, but add to it so that we can address concerns that people have today. In his book, Mere Christianity, this is what CS Lewis said to people who were saying, oh, maybe Jesus was a good moral teacher, or maybe he was a great prophet, but he wasn't divine. Lewis wrote this quote, I'm trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him, meaning Jesus. I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on the level with the man who says he is opposed to poached egg. Very British analogy there. Or else he would be the devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him, kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that option open to us. He did not intend to. Now it seems to me obvious that he, Jesus, was neither a lunatic nor a fiend. And consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that he was and is God. Powerful argument, isn't it? I mean, if you think about it, if someone goes around claiming to be God but knows that they're not, they can't be a great moral teacher because they're a liar of the worst possible degree, right? Literally an infinite lie. However, on the other hand, if someone goes around claiming to be God but isn't God, then they have to be a lunatic of the greatest possible degree, right? Lewis says here on the level of a man who thinks he's a poached egg, but there's actually more in common between man and an egg than between man and God, he's infinitely greater than us, right? So someone who would say that would be as crazy as you can possibly be. And Lewis says, when I read the Gospels, that's not the person I encounter. I don't encounter an evil man and I don't encounter a lunatic. So I think that in light of the Gospel evidence, the most reasonable response is to say that Jesus was who he claimed to be, namely God. Now that argument worked very well in the 1950s when Lewis was writing for people who mostly believed that the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, that they were biographies of Jesus, and that they tell us what Jesus did and said. But nowadays, a fourth option has been brought onto the table by skeptical scholars like Bart Ehrman, who I've mentioned before. Listen to what Bart Ehrman says about Lewis's argument and why it doesn't work. Bart Ehrman says there is a fourth option, legend, and I'm quoting him here. Jesus probably never called himself God. This means he doesn't have to be either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. He could be a first century Palestinian Jew who had a message to proclaim other than his own Divinity. Now notice Ehrman doesn't mean here that Jesus is a legend and that he didn't exist. That's not what he means. What he's saying is a fourth option is Jesus never claimed to be God. And the claims that are made in the Gospels in which Jesus says he's divine are legendary. In other words, the historical figure of Jesus never actually said these things. Now you might be thinking, well, why would Aaron make that kind of an argument? Why would he say that? And the answer is this. Bart Ammerman would definitely admit that in the Gospel of John, Jesus claims to be divine. He claims to be God. For example, In John chapter 8, verse 58 to 59, Jesus says, Before Abraham was I am egoemi in the Greek, which is an allusion to God revealing his name to Moses in the Book of Exodus, chapter three, I am, I am he who is. Right. And then again in John 10, 30, 33 even more explicit, Jesus says, I and the Father are one. And how do the Jews respond to that declaration? It says that they took up stones to stone him to death. And they said, you though a man, make yourself God. Right? So most interpreters of John's Gospel would agree that in the Gospel of John, Jesus does claim to be divine. But what scholars like Ehrman will say is that it's only in the Gospel of John and in the first three Gospels. Remember the two source hypothesis, Matthew, Mark and Luke. Jesus never claims to be God. He claims to be the Messiah, but he doesn't claim to be divine. So according to this view, it's three against one, right? In three Gospels you have a human Jesus, merely human. And in the Gospel of John, you have a divine Jesus. And remember here we what's the order of the Gospels? According to the major theory, John is last to be written at the end of the first century ad. So I'll just let Ehrman himself give you his argument here. Listen to his words. Quote, if Jesus went around Galilee proclaiming himself to be a divine being sent from God, could anything else that he might say be so breathtaking and thunderously important? And yet none of these earlier sources, and here he means Matthew, Mark and Luke says any such thing about him, did they all of them just decide not to mention the one thing that was the most significant about Jesus? Almost certainly the divine self claims in John are not historical, end quote. That's the key to the argument these days. Nowadays there are scholars who are saying Jesus only claimed to be divine in John and not in the earlier gospels. Therefore that's something that John has made up and attributed to Jesus. But it's legendary, it's not historically accurate. And I have to say there's some merit to this argument because if you look at Matthew, Mark and Luke and you read them through, does Jesus ever go around and say, hey, everybody, I'm God. Does he walk around the streets of Galilee saying, I am God, please say no. No, that's right. He doesn't do that. Right. So is his divinity more explicit in John? Yes. Right. But is Ehrman right to say that Jesus doesn't claim to be God in the first three Gospels? Matthew, Mark and Luke? And I think the answer to that is resounding no. And what I want to show you in this session is this. Jesus does claim to be divine in Matthew, Mark and Luke, but he does it in a Jewish way, using Jewish language and Jewish riddles and images that are meant to both reveal his divinity to those who have ears to hear and to conceal it from his opponents until the time comes for him to proclaim it openly at his trial. Okay, so let me give you a few examples of why amen is completely wrong here and Jesus is in fact divine in all four gospels. Now, I'm not going to look at Matthew and Luke. We don't have time. I'm just going to pick passages from Mark, which is widely regarded as the earliest gospel by scholars like Ehrman. And I'm going to pick passages that are in the other Gospels as well. So these are representative passages. We're going to look at three passages in which Jesus reveals his divinity in the synoptic Gospels. First, the healing of the paralytic number two, the walking on water, and then third, and finally the transfiguration, one of my favorite passages in the Gospels. And we're going to try to read these passages through ancient Jewish eyes to see what Jesus is doing and hear what he's saying in the way that Peter and James and John would have done as first century Jews. Okay, so let's begin with the healing of the paralytic in Mark, chapter 2, verse 1 through 12. One of the first things Jesus does in the Gospel of Mark is perform this miracle of the healing of the paralytic. And I know you know the story, but I want you to read it again with the question of is Jesus claiming to be God at the forefront of your mind? All right? It says this. When Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home and many were gathered together so that there was no longer room for them. Not even about the door. And he was preaching the word to them. And they came bringing him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him. And when they had made an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic lay. And when Jesus saw their faith, he. He said to the paralytic, my son, your sins are forgiven. Now pause there for a second. I don't know about you, but if I was the paralytic, I would have been like, okay, thanks. But that's not exactly what I came here for. You happen to notice I'm paralyzed. Why are you talking about my sins? Right. Okay, now, some of the scribes. Keep going. Were sitting there questioning in their hearts, why does this man speak thus? It is blasphemy. Who can forgive sins but God alone? And immediately Jesus, perceiving in their spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, why do you question thus in your hearts? Which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven. Or to say, rise, take up your pallet and walk. But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He said to the paralytic, I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home. And he rose and immediately took up the pallet and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and they glorified God, saying, we never saw anything like this. All right, so a couple things to highlight here. First, notice that on the one hand, you might think, well, this is just a miracle, that Jesus is showing his power. And it is a miracle, and he is showing his power. But a lot more is going on there. First thing, notice the way Jesus talks to the guy. My son, how old is Jesus? 30, 31, 32. All right, almost 10 years younger than me. I'm 44. And we don't know how old this guy was, but Jesus calls him his son. That's a strange thing to say to a full grown man, right? That you've never met. Second, your sins are forgiven. You now, also weird, right? Because obviously the guy is coming because he's paralyzed. Why doesn't he focus on the paralysis? Why does he focus on the sin? Third, notice how they react when Jesus declares a man's sins are forgiven. Their reaction is, this is blasphemy. Who can forgive sins but whom? God alone. And the Greek is actually stronger. In the Greek, it literally says, who can forgive sins but the one God that's The literal Greek. Now, if you're a first century Jew and you hear the expression the one God, what does that make you think of? It makes you think of the Shema, the daily Jewish prayer from Deuteronomy 6, verse 4 through 6, Hear, O Israel, Shema in Hebrew, the Lord your God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength. Right? Jesus himself would have repeated that prayer probably three times a day along with Joseph and Mary, because by the first century ad, that was like the common daily prayer of the Jewish people. So when they say no one can forgive sins but the one God, they realize that Jesus has just acted as if he has divine authority and power to do something that only the one God of monotheism, the one God of Israel, can do. And that's why Jesus turns to them and says, no, guys, you got me all wrong. I'm just a man. I'm just a human being. Is that how he responds? No, no, he doesn't respond that way. To the contrary, he says, which is easier to heal the visible miracle of this man's paralysis or to just say your sins are forgiven? See, if you say your sins are forgiven, you can't see whether it's. It happens or not. Right? Like, we don't get a sin rash whenever we commit sins. Although that might be helpful, might make people not want to sin as much. Right? Because the sins are invisible. So what Jesus says is so that you might know that I have the power to perform the invisible miracle forgiving his sins, I'll also do the visible miracle of healing his paralysis. So, you know, I do have the power and the authority that only God has. And so he says, stand, rise up, take your pallet and walk. And how do the crowds respond? They don't say, oh, all the messianic claimants do this. Everybody does this. They say, what? We've never seen anything like this. So at the very beginning of his ministry, he's already being accused of blasphemy for claiming to be able to do something that only God can do. So if all we had was this passage, we could say that scholars who say Jesus is. Isn't claiming to be God in the synoptics are wrong. But it's not all we have. We also want to look at the miracles of Jesus that are kind of pointing to the natural world. And my favorite one of these is the walking on water. Everybody like this story? Okay, yeah, this is a great story. It's from Mark 6:45, 52. Let's read it together again and try to look at it through ancient Jewish eyes. It says this immediately. Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray. I don't know if you ever noticed this, but Jesus likes to get away to pray by himself with the Father and he likes to do it on mountains. Mountains are always sacred places in the Bible. They're always holy places, places of encounter. I bring this up because we're in Denver, Okay? Right. I'm from New Orleans. Like, we have swamps. Swamps are always named after the devil, right? Devil's swamps. But mountains, mountains are holy. Mountains are sacred. Okay, so he goes up the mountain to pray. Now, when evening came, the boat was out on the sea, for he was alone on the land. And he saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of the night, Jesus came to them walking on the sea. Now, he meant to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and they cried out, for they all saw him and they were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, take heart. And literally in Greek, I am ego eimi, have no fear. And he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded. Okay, so what's going on here in this story, which is in Matthew and Mark and it's also in John. I'll come back to John in just a second. Well, on the one hand, you could just say this is another miracle. Jesus is showing his power. But I think something more is going on here. And I think most first century Jews would have seen it, because when Jesus comes to them walking on the water, they're afraid. And what does he say? Take heart, ego eimi I am. Now, again, that phrase I am in a Jewish mindset is an echo of the Old Testament, right? When God appears to Moses on the mountain and Moses says, well, what name will I give to the Israelites when I go to them? And what does God say? Tell them I am has sent you to them. This is my name for all generations. Because you see, the God of Israel wasn't like the pagan deities. There was the God of this mountain or that river or this desert or that, you know, you had the snake God or the bull God, all these different parts of creation. But the God of Israel is so to Speak. The one who is, who is being itself, who has no beginning, who has no end, who simply is. So much so that his very name is he who Is, or I am. So when the apostles are free, Jesus takes the divine name as his own and not only reveals to them that he's not a ghost, he's identifying himself, but he's also revealing to them something much more, his divine power. And you can see there, I have a quote from Exodus 3:14. God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, say this to the people of Israel, I am has sent me to you. Now, you should be aware that some people like Arama, will object to this. They'll say, oh, well, no, no, no. In certain contexts, I am can just mean it's me, right? And it is true. It's true that in some context, it can be used to identify a person. All right? In fact, in the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus appears to the apostles after the resurrection, he says, ego e mi autos. I think that's the exact Greek. Basically, it is, I myself. Touch me. Feel me, see that it's me. Okay? So it does identify him. And I'm not denying that. But the way you look at the meaning of words is not just what they say, but the context, right? So what's the context here? He's walking on water, man. Okay? This isn't just him strolling down the street. Okay? And what's fascinating about this, I actually didn't put this in the book because I didn't know it when I read it. When I read it. Look at me. Listen, I'm from the South. What do you want? Okay. I didn't know this when I wrote it, but in Job, chapter 8, in the Greek version of Job, it says that God, and God alone strides the waves as if on dry ground, like only God can walk on. Shall we say, walk on water, Right? That's from Job, chapter eight. So you might take a look at that as Old Testament background. So put yourself in the place of the apostles. If you know the Jewish scriptures and you know that you God's name is I am in Exodus 3. And that job says that God walks on the waves in Job, chapter 8. And then Jesus comes to you walking on the waves and says, don't be afraid. Which is what everyone does in the Old Testament. When God appears, what do people do? They get scared, right? He's awesome. It was C.S. lewis in the Chronicles of Narnia who used Aslan, the lion, as a symbol of Christ. And he says he's a good lion, but he's not tame. Right? He's dangerous. And that's how God is, right? He's good, but he's not tame. Okay? There's an awesomeness, a power that the human response to is fear. But in this case, they're not afraid of God. Who are they afraid of? Jesus. And so what does Jesus say? Don't be afraid. I am. See it now. And sure enough, in Matthew's account, In Matthew, chapter 14, we get a little added detail. In verse 32, it says, when they got into the boat, the wind ceased, and those in the boat worshiped him, saying, truly, you are the Son of God. And the word for worship there is, they fell on their faces before him. It's the same word earlier in Matthew that Satan uses with Jesus, worship me, and all this shall be yours. And what does Jesus say? The Lord your God, him alone shall you worship. And yet the disciples worship Jesus after he walks on the water. And he doesn't say, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop, stop, stop. Get up, guys. I'm just a man. He accepts it, you see. So is Jesus acting as if he's God in the synoptics in Matthew, Mark, and Luke? You better believe it. Although let me add one last point here about John's account. I can't help it. I got to look at John at least one point here, because John has the same story of the walking in water. But he adds one detail. It's really crucial. In John 6:19, he tells us that they were three or four miles from the shore. So this isn't like Jesus walking on a sandbar next to the shoreline. The Sea of Galilee, if you've been there, it's about seven miles wide at its widest point, which is. It's not a little pond. It's a lake. It's a Sea of Galilee. Okay? And so they're about three or four miles from the shore when Jesus comes walking to them. Now I live in New Orleans. Well, I mean, I used to live in New Orleans. I live in Houma now. It's my hometown, but it's not far. It's south of New Orleans. New Orleans people, they're Yankees. We live real south. Houma, Anyway, and I used to live in Covington, which is north of Lake Pontchartrain, right north of the city, and has the longest bridge in the world. It's the causeway. It's 24 miles long. And I would commute every day to work over the causeway. And one day I was driving in to teach about the walking on the water. And I thought, huh, how far is four miles from the shore? Right. So the bridge, the causeway, has all these mile markers every mile. And so when I got to mile marker 4, I quickly glanced back to kind of see, how far is four miles from the shore? That's a long way. Okay, So I like to tell my students, look, if Jesus didn't know he was God by mile one, he probably figured it out by mile four, right? He's walking like something's different about me, you know, I'm not like all the other guys here. Okay? Okay. Come on, man. I really want you to ponder the mystery of that. It's the middle of the night. Four miles. This is what the gospels are saying. He walks four miles over the waves before encountering the disciples and saying, don't be afraid. And John has the same thing. Ego e mi I am. It's a revelation of his divinity. You see it now, but notice he's doing it in a Jewish way, because who's he talking to? Jews. Jewish people. Right. And then finally, the third episode from the synoptic gospels that's really clear is the account of the transfiguration. Sorry? In Mark, chapter two, verse nine through seven, we get the account of Jesus transfigured. Let's read this together again. I know you know the story, but try to read it through Jewish eyes. After six days, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and led them up and high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them. And his garments became glistening, intensely white, like no fuller on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah and Moses. And they were talking to Jesus. And Peter said to Jesus, master, it is well that we are here. Let us make three booths. One for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. For he did not know what to say. For they were exceedingly. Here it is again. Afraid. And a cloud overshadowed them. And a voice came out of the cloud. This is my beloved son. Listen to him. All right, pause there. Now, does Jesus say, hey, everybody, I'm God in this account? No, but what does he do? He goes to the top of a mountain and he is transfigured before the apostles. And Elijah and Moses appear with him. And in Luke's gospel, he tells us that they spoke together about the exodus Jesus was going to accomplish. Now, if you know your Old Testament, you'll know that whenever God appears to people like Moses and Elijah, where does he do it? On a mountaintop. That's very good. That's very good. In fact, I actually think that's the answer to the question, why Moses and Elijah? Have you ever wondered about this? Why don't Adam and Eve appear? Or why not Isaiah and Jeremiah, right? Or David and Solomon? Why is it Elijah and Moses? Why these two prophets? And also, too, my students always ask me, how did the apostles know it was Moses and Elijah? And I just tell them, isn't it obvious? It's the beards, right? I don't know. I don't know how they know. But it says that it's Moses and Elijah. So most people will say the common interpretation is that Elijah represents the prophets and Moses represents the law. Right, the law and the prophets, which were two portions of the Jewish scriptures. And I think that that's reasonable. I wouldn't want to deny that that meaning, level of meaning might be there. But I don't think that's the primary reason. I think the primary reason is if you know your Old Testament, you'll know that Moses and Elijah were the two prophets in the Old Testament who had visions of God on Mount Sinai, but they couldn't see his face. So if you look, I have a little chart in the case for Jesus that kind of lays this out. In Exodus 33, 34, Moses goes up Mount Sinai and it says, the Lord passes by. And remember, Moses says, show me your glory. He wants to see the face of God. And God says, you can't. I'll show you my backside. And then the glory of the Lord passes by and Moses has to hide in the cleft of a rock because he can't see the face of God and live. And then Fast forward to 1 Kings, chapter 19. Elijah goes up the same mountain, Mount Sinai, and the Lord comes to him, and there's earthquake and a fire and all these kind of phenomena. And. And it says that God wasn't in any of them. He was in a still, small voice. Remember this passage? But what most people forget is that when that still, small voice comes, Elijah comes out of the cave where he was hiding and he wraps his face in his garment because he wants to see God, but he knows he can't look upon his face. Moses and Elijah were the two prophets in the Old Testament who desired to see the face of God, but they couldn't. When Jesus takes his apostles up the mountain of Transfiguration and unveils his glory, and his face becomes white like the shining sun, right? With the power of his divinity. Who's there? Moses and Elijah. Why them? Because now God has a human face. And Moses and Elijah are able to see the face of God in Jesus of Nazareth. Do you see it? And you don't have to take my word for this. The Catechism of the Catholic Church. I'm actually stealing this from the Catechism. I don't know if you've ever read the Catechism. It's the official compendium of all the Church's teachings. And one day I was reading the section on prayer at the end, paragraph 2583. Listen what the Catechism says. Only on the mountain of transfiguration will Moses and Elijah behold the unveiled face of him whom they sought. God has a human face now in Jesus of Nazareth. And that's what Moses, Elijah and the apostles get a foretaste of. They get to experience the beatific vision of the face of God on the mountain of the transfigured configuration. Because the God, the same God who appeared to Moses and Elijah has now become man. So in closing, then, let's go back to the original point. So Bart Ehrman said there's a fourth option there. Liar, lunatic, Lord or legend. And he says, well, Jesus never claimed to be God. He only makes those claims in John, and he never says any such thing in Matthew, Mark or Luke. Is that true? No. And this is so important. That means that Jesus is divine in Matthew, Jesus is divine in Mark, Jesus is divine in Luke, and Jesus is divine in John. In other words, the case is not three against one. It's four biographies. We have four biographies from the first century A.D. written either by eyewitnesses or companions of apostles, and that agree that Jesus of Nazareth not only claimed to be the Messiah, but that he spoke and he acted as if he were God made man. So Lewis's argument stands. You either have to say he was a liar or he was a lunatic. But we can't have any of this nonsense about him just being a great moral teacher or a prophet. He didn't leave us that option. The only other option is that he is who he claimed to be, the Lord. When we come back, we're going to look at the Crucifixion and ask the question, if Jesus was God, then why did he end up dead on a cross?