In the New Testament, why did Jesus Christ never say directly to his followers, "I am the true God manifested in the flesh"? Does this mean not claiming to be God in flesh is not a proof that Jesus is the true God?
Jesus directly told His disciples that He is God.
It is everywhere through the Bible, in nearly every book.
But it is told in Jewish terminology — not 21st century English terminology. To understand what Jesus meant, we have to understand how His audience understood His words.
Consider Matthew 3:17:
And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
This is Jesus’ introduction. God could have used any possible descriptor of Jesus at this point. So why does God the Father start by saying that Jesus is His Son?
To Western ears, being called “son” doesn’t mean much. We assume it means any male child.
In Jewish understanding, to be called “the son of” your father, you must be the same as your father. A male child must grow to the point where he is an adult, working a job, responsible for his life choices, and so forth — the same as his father is — before he can be called “the son of” his father.
Likewise, for Jesus to be called “the Son of God,” He must be the same as God. He could not be a mere righteous human king and be called “the Son of God,” because He would be the opposite of everything God is. He’d be finite, limited, a mere human.
To be called “the Son of God,” Jesus must be the same as God: eternal, the creator, uncaused, all-powerful, and so on.
That’s why the Jewish authorities tried to kill Jesus when He claimed God was His Father, making Jesus the Son of God. They heard it as the most awful blasphemy — a human claiming to be God.
This carried over into common Jewish expressions. To identify a person with a certain characteristic or fate, it was common to say they were the son of that quality.
In John 17:12, Jesus refers to Judas as “the son of destruction,” as Judas carries out his plot of betrayal against Jesus. By this, Jesus was not saying anything about Judas’ parents. Rather, He stated that Judas’ crime was so severe that he would unavoidably be destroyed because of it.
To be a son meant you were one with your father. To be the son of destruction meant that Judas was one with destruction.
Therefore, when God the Father declares Jesus to be His Son, He is declaring clearly and unequivocally that Jesus is the same as His Father.
They are one; they are both God. Or to say it more precisely:
Jesus is the same God who made the world, the same God whom Israel worshipped throughout the entire Old Testament, and He has now taken on flesh to live among and redeem His people.
This claim was unmistakable to the Jewish ear.
When Jesus stood on trial, the chief priests sought in vain for witnesses who could accuse Jesus of any wrongdoing. Yet they had no need of them. When they asked Jesus plainly, “Are you the Son of God, then?” Jesus responded, “You say rightly. I am.” They exploded with fury, declaring, “What further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips!” (Luke 22:70-71).
They held no doubt about who Jesus said He was. By stating that He was the Son of God, Jesus declared Himself to be equal with God, to be the same as His Father in Heaven. The Gospel of John makes it absolutely explicit, declaring:
“This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God” (John 5:18 ESV)
The chief priests heard these words as blasphemy.
If being the Son of God meant anything other than claiming to be God, it would not have been blasphemy. Blasphemy means to speak words about God that are untrue.
If “Son of God” meant that Jesus was spiritual, or a gifted spiritual leader, or a messenger from God, or anything else other than claiming to be God, it would have been a mere disagreement. The chief priests might not have liked it or agreed with it, but it wouldn’t have been blasphemy.
Both Jesus’ followers and Jesus’ enemies realized that to be the Son of God is to be God.
Jesus could not have claimed to be God any clearer than to say that He is the only Son of God. (Kyle Davison Bair)
.
Jesus directly told His disciples that He is God.
It is everywhere through the Bible, in nearly every book.
But it is told in Jewish terminology — not 21st century English terminology. To understand what Jesus meant, we have to understand how His audience understood His words.
Consider Matthew 3:17:
And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
This is Jesus’ introduction. God could have used any possible descriptor of Jesus at this point. So why does God the Father start by saying that Jesus is His Son?
To Western ears, being called “son” doesn’t mean much. We assume it means any male child.
In Jewish understanding, to be called “the son of” your father, you must be the same as your father. A male child must grow to the point where he is an adult, working a job, responsible for his life choices, and so forth — the same as his father is — before he can be called “the son of” his father.
Likewise, for Jesus to be called “the Son of God,” He must be the same as God. He could not be a mere righteous human king and be called “the Son of God,” because He would be the opposite of everything God is. He’d be finite, limited, a mere human.
To be called “the Son of God,” Jesus must be the same as God: eternal, the creator, uncaused, all-powerful, and so on.
That’s why the Jewish authorities tried to kill Jesus when He claimed God was His Father, making Jesus the Son of God. They heard it as the most awful blasphemy — a human claiming to be God.
This carried over into common Jewish expressions. To identify a person with a certain characteristic or fate, it was common to say they were the son of that quality.
In John 17:12, Jesus refers to Judas as “the son of destruction,” as Judas carries out his plot of betrayal against Jesus. By this, Jesus was not saying anything about Judas’ parents. Rather, He stated that Judas’ crime was so severe that he would unavoidably be destroyed because of it.
To be a son meant you were one with your father. To be the son of destruction meant that Judas was one with destruction.
Therefore, when God the Father declares Jesus to be His Son, He is declaring clearly and unequivocally that Jesus is the same as His Father.
They are one; they are both God. Or to say it more precisely:
Jesus is the same God who made the world, the same God whom Israel worshipped throughout the entire Old Testament, and He has now taken on flesh to live among and redeem His people.
This claim was unmistakable to the Jewish ear.
When Jesus stood on trial, the chief priests sought in vain for witnesses who could accuse Jesus of any wrongdoing. Yet they had no need of them. When they asked Jesus plainly, “Are you the Son of God, then?” Jesus responded, “You say rightly. I am.” They exploded with fury, declaring, “What further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips!” (Luke 22:70-71).
They held no doubt about who Jesus said He was. By stating that He was the Son of God, Jesus declared Himself to be equal with God, to be the same as His Father in Heaven. The Gospel of John makes it absolutely explicit, declaring:
“This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God” (John 5:18 ESV)
The chief priests heard these words as blasphemy.
If being the Son of God meant anything other than claiming to be God, it would not have been blasphemy. Blasphemy means to speak words about God that are untrue.
If “Son of God” meant that Jesus was spiritual, or a gifted spiritual leader, or a messenger from God, or anything else other than claiming to be God, it would have been a mere disagreement. The chief priests might not have liked it or agreed with it, but it wouldn’t have been blasphemy.
Both Jesus’ followers and Jesus’ enemies realized that to be the Son of God is to be God.
Jesus could not have claimed to be God any clearer than to say that He is the only Son of God. (Kyle Davison Bair)
.
