HOUSMAIL HM#093 - IS JESUS GOD? 28 June 2002
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 Nicea 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!
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The real meaning of the words "I AM" in this verse, is discussed in some detail in:
HOUSMAIL HM#047 - 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!
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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
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