Reason 2 of 13
No other founder claimed what Jesus claimed
Jesus did not claim to be one teacher among many. He forgave sins, took the divine name, said He would judge the world and said no one comes to the Father except through Him. Claims like that are either true or disqualifying.
What He claimed
Jesus forgave sins committed against other people, which His hearers rightly said only God can do. He said that before Abraham was born, I AM, echoing the name of God in Exodus 3:14, and His audience picked up stones. At His trial He accepted the titles Christ and Son of the Blessed and said they would see Him seated at the right hand of power, and the high priest called it blasphemy.
5Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.” 6But there were some of the scribes sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, 7“Why does this man speak blasphemies like that? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
Mark 2:5-7 (WEB) · context
58Jesus said to them, “Most certainly, I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM.” 59Therefore they took up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple, having gone through the middle of them, and so passed by.
John 8:58-59 (WEB) · context
14God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
Exodus 3:14 (WEB) · context
61But he stayed quiet, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” 62Jesus said, “I am. You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of the sky.” 63The high priest tore his clothes and said, “What further need have we of witnesses? 64You have heard the blasphemy! What do you think?” They all condemned him to be worthy of death.
Mark 14:61-64 (WEB) · context
The only way
Jesus said He is the way, the truth and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through Him. Peter told the same council that there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. The founders of other faiths pointed to a path; Jesus said He is the path.
C. S. Lewis argued that claims like these leave no room for calling Jesus merely a good moral teacher: either He was who He said He was, or He was not good (Mere Christianity, Book 2, chapter 3). The resurrection is the evidence that settles which.
6Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.
John 14:6 (WEB) · context
12There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that is given among men, by which we must be saved!”
Acts 4:12 (WEB) · context
4who was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,
Romans 1:4 (WEB) · context
The strongest objection, stated fairly
Perhaps Jesus never made these claims, and the church added them later.
How it answers
The claims are not confined to John. They run through Mark, usually thought the earliest Gospel, and through Paul's letters, the earliest written about twenty years after the crucifixion. They also explain why He was executed for blasphemy.
5Have this in your mind, which was also in Christ Jesus, 6who, existing in the form of God, didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. 8And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, yes, the death of the cross. 9Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name, 10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, 11and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:5-11 (WEB) · context
Where Christians disagree
- Scholars debate how directly the historical Jesus spoke of His own divinity. Many, including Larry Hurtado, have shown that devotion to Jesus as divine appears very early among Jewish believers, within the first decades.
Sources
- Mark 2; Mark 14; John 8; John 14; Acts 4
- C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), Book 2, chapter 3
- Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Eerdmans, 2003)
Why the evidence matters
If Jesus rose, His offer is real
God loves you and gave His Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish.