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HOUSMAIL HM093 28
June 2002 IS JESUS GOD? The
"Religious Education" teacher at the school attended by one of my Grandchildren
told the class last Monday, that John 8:58 "proved" that Jesus is God! Remember
the verse? The bit where Jesus said, "Before Abraham was, I am"? The claim by the teacher was that since "I Am" is God's
name in Exodus 3:14, then
Jesus must be using the name "I Am" to claim to be God. Of course
that interpretation is NOT unusual from religious teachers. After all, it has
been the "official party line" of the Mainstream Church since a majority
vote made it compulsory, at the Council of Nicaea in AD325. And
of course my grandson has been taught from the cradle, that what the teacher said
was wrong! He has been taught that such "belief" indicates a lack of
understanding of the Scriptures, which, sadly, is common to most of the rest of
the Church. But
he has also been taught to show proper respect for authority. In any case, I only
ever heard of one child that age who had all the Bible background
required to respectfully correct a teacher in front of the whole class! (And it doesn't take long for children of average intelligence
to work out that not many teachers can cope with that, at all!) So my grandson did the next best thing. He asked this question at
our mid-week Bible Study: "If Jesus is not God, how come that He said that He is?" This is where it starts for all of us. Read the verse carefully for yourself. Does it really say in so many words, that Jesus is God"? Of course it does not say that at all! The
real meaning of the words "I AM" in this verse, is discussed
in some detail in: HM047 - When Jesus Said, "I Am". Read
it for yourself. Ask for a copy if you don't have one. But for now, my 10 and
12 year old Grandchildren, need a much simpler and shorter answer than a Lesson
which deals in Greek Grammar and Bible Translation! The simple bottom line answer is in John 17:3. There
Jesus says plainly that His FATHER is the ONLY TRUE GOD -- and that Jesus is someone
else! That must mean that Jesus Himself is NOT GOD! It would
indeed be a huge contradiction if, in other parts of the very same Gospel, Jesus
used the words "I AM" to claim the Divine name for Himself as God! Jesus
is definitely NOT confused about who His Father is! Nor is He wrong about His
own identity! THAT would be truly impossible! If we
keep THAT firmly fixed in our minds, we will always know that other verses in
the Bible about Jesus, CANNOT and do NOT contradict that simple statement in John 17:3. There will always be
a way to understand them that does not require us to scramble our brains
with the ridiculous confusion that arises from trying to "prove" that
Jesus is part of a mind boggling mathematical impossibility where 1+1+1=1! The
Bible clearly says many times, that Jesus is the "SON OF GOD" -- It
NEVER says anywhere that He is "god-the-son". Allon |