Being a Christian means having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which presupposes one truly knows who He is. One cannot know Jesus intimately while believing wrong things about Him (John 17:3; 1 Cor 12:3). In fact, the apostle John makes the point in his epistle that a basic test of true faith is knowing fundamental truth about who Jesus is. John declares that to be a Christian you must believe that Jesus became a real human (1 John 4:2), but also one must believe that Jesus is deity (4:15). You cannot be a Christian if you reject the truth that Jesus is fully God. This is the greatest distinctive of Christianity, the Bible’s teaching about the nature of God—that He is Triune, manifest as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the One true God.
Every false religion in history and every false ideology in the world today rejects the idea that Jesus is deity, fully God. The mark of false religion is that it poses a Jesus who is ultimately a created being, always said to be inferior at some level, supposedly, and less than eternal God. This is true of Islam, Hinduism, Mormonism, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, and every other heretical religious sect. This was the hallmark view of liberal Christianity in the early 20th century that took American denominations by storm, as a flurry of so-called Bible scholars supposedly discovered that Jesus wasn’t God after all. The Church had it wrong for 1800 years and they came on the scene to set us all straight. This “liberal” view of Christianity that denigrates the deity of Christ is still alive and well in countless so-called churches today and is a dangerous cancer.
When I was in college I was part of an organization called, “Ex-Mormons For Jesus,” and we spent much time witnessing to and debating Mormons as well as all other religious cults. I even had Mormon missionaries visiting my dorm-room on the college campus on Saturdays, coming in droves week after week, to convince me their religion was true and that mine was false. One of the main arguments that they repeated non-stop to prove their point was they alleged that Jesus never claimed to be God. They would even concede the point that apparently some of Jesus’ followers may have thought He was deity, but His followers were wrong. Jesus never identified Himself as God. So they said. False religionists still argue that point today on a regular basis.
Sadly, the notion that Jesus never explicitly claimed to be God is not touted only by cultists, atheists, and antagonists of historic biblical Christianity. Many sincere believers actually hold this view, and unfortunately so do some Bible teachers and evangelical scholars. It is unthinkable. For example, Millard Erickson, a long-time, highly respected conservative evangelical theologian holds this errant view. He wrote the following in his systematic theology: “Jesus never directly asserted his deity. He never said simply, ‘I am God’…Jesus did not make an explicit and overt claim to deity” (Christian Theology [1985] 326, 684). Thankfully, there are plenty of solid systematic theologies that counter this egregious statement by asserting categorically that Jesus did explicitly claim to be God (for example, see MacArthur & Mayhue, Biblical Doctrine, 2017, 259, 288).
Contrary to what many think, a close examination of the New Testament reveals that Jesus was acutely aware of who He was. He consciously knew He was deity, eternal God in the flesh, and He even said so on many occasions. Consider the following sixteen statements that Jesus made about His own identity where He claimed to be deity, or explicitly claimed to possess attributes, titles, prerogatives, and roles that solely belong to God.
(1) Jesus Claimed to be Lord
At the Last Supper after washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus reclined with them for the meal and told them, “You call Me…Lord; and you are right, for so I am” (John 13:13). Here, Jesus explicitly claimed He was Lord, and by that He meant that He was God. Jesus proved He was the divine Lord by rising from the dead (Phil 2:9-11). The greatest doctrinal confession of the apostolic Church was the declaration, “Jesus is Lord!” (Acts 16:31; Rom 9:10). And by that declaration they were acknowledging Jesus was God, as He earlier affirmed about Himself.
(2) Jesus Claimed to be the Judge
Speaking to His religious critics, Jesus claimed to be the judge of every soul. He said pointedly to them, “all judgment belongs to the Son” (John 5:22). Jesus and the Jews knew that the Hebrew Scriptures taught that only God “was the Judge of all the earth” (Gen 18:25) and that, “God is the Judge” (Ps 75:7). Only God “will judge the world in righteousness” (Ps 9:8). Yet in John 5 Jesus claimed that He is the Judge. This is an explicit claim to deity.
(3) Jesus Claimed to be Supernatural
Late in His ministry at the Temple in Jerusalem, Jesus proclaimed to the multitude, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world” (John 8:23). Here Jesus was explicitly declaring that His origin, and thus His very nature, was supernatural and heavenly, unlike His listeners, who were created, finite, normal people. A few months earlier He said the same thing to the massive crowds in Galilee. There, after feeding thousands with bread made by a miracle, He declared publicly, “I have come down from heaven” (John 6:38). He was saying that He came to earth from heaven where He had been with the Father for all eternity. The crowd “grumbled” at His overt self-acclamation of deity (6:41), so He repeated the statement at least three more times (6:50-51, 58). And to clarify what He meant, He got more specific and said, “the Father sent Me” (6:44).
(4) Jesus Claimed to be the Life-Giver
John 3:16 makes it clear that God is the One who gives sinners eternal life when they believe the gospel. Only God has the sovereign power to give humans eternal life. But fully aware of this truth, Jesus proclaimed to the Jews at the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, “I give eternal life” (John 10:28). Jesus explained that the power for a sinner to live forever in heaven belonged to Him, for He was God. Jesus repeated this truth about Himself again and again during His ministry. After raising Lazarus from the dead, giving Him physical life, Jesus declared that He also had the power to grant eternal life. He declared, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). And just before His death He said it again: “I am the life.” Only God can give life, physical and eternal. Jesus was claiming to be deity.
(5) Jesus Claimed to be Sovereign
Only God is sovereign (Ps 115). On one occasion when teaching the Jews in Jerusalem, Jesus asserted the following truth about Himself: “I lay down My life that I may take it up again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again” (John 10:17-18). Jesus claimed here to have sovereign authority over life and death itself. His listeners knew exactly what He was claiming, and they did not believe Him. They accused Him of being “insane” and demon-possessed (10:21), for no ordinary man could make such a claim. Only God could do so legitimately.
(6) Jesus Claimed to be Equal with God the Father
Jesus proclaimed to the religious Jews, “I and the Father are one…I am the Son of God” (John 10:30, 36). When Jesus said He was one with the Father He meant that He was equal to the Father in nature and glory, not just in purpose and intention. He later got more specific, explaining that the claim was ontological, not just merely axiological: “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me” (John 14:11). Jesus did things only God could do. His listeners knew He was making an overt claim to deity because when He said that He was one with the Father, they “picked up stones to stone Him” (10:31). They interpreted His words on the spot accusing Him of blasphemy by claiming to be deity. They declared, “You, being a man, make yourself out to be God” (10:33). Earlier Jesus had publicly called God His Father, a claim to deity. The Jews considered that blasphemy, for by calling God His own Father, He “was making Himself equal with God” (John 5:18). So it is evident that even though cultists and some evangelical theologians today don’t believe Jesus ever claimed explicitly to be deity, the Jews who eventually had Him crucified clearly knew that He did.
(7) Jesus Claimed to be Sinless
In John 8 Jesus declared, “I am the Light of the world” (v. 12). Later in the chapter He asked the crowd who was listening, “which of you convicts Me of sin?…I speak truth” (v. 46). Here Jesus claimed to be sinless, as holy as God Himself. Only God is true light. Light refers to holiness, sinlessness, and other attributes reserved for God. The Old Testament said God was the light of the world, as David prayed, “The LORD is my light and my salvation” (Ps 27:1). The apostle John affirmed the same and declared, “God is Light, and Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).
(8) Jesus claimed to be YHWH
In John 8 the apostle describes the scene where the Jewish leadership launched an all-out vicious, verbal, public attack on Jesus, calling Him a liar (v. 13), an unclean Samaritan (v. 48), and a demon-possessed bastard (vv. 41, 48). Jesus turned the tables and told them they were from Satan (v. 44), and in contrast He was the great “I AM,” YHWH God of the Old Testament (v. 58). He told them, “Before Abraham was born, I Am.” Jesus was claiming for Himself God’s very personal name, YHWH, revealed to Moses at the burning bush, when God told Moses that His name was, “I AM” (Exod 3:14). Jesus was here claiming to be the God of the Hebrew Scriptures. When the Jews heard Jesus make this astounding claim they immediately picked up stones to stone Him for blasphemy (John 8:59). They knew He was claiming to be God.
(9) Jesus Claimed to be Self-Existent
All humans are contingent, created beings. Only eternal God is self-existent and self-sustaining. Yet Jesus claimed to be self-existent where He said to His critics, “the Son has life in Himself” (John 5:26). This statement is consistent with Jesus’ claim to be the “I AM,” for that title is God’s claim to being the eternally, uncreated self-existent one. This is what God told Moses His name was. The Greek phrase, “I AM,” is a form of the Hebrew verb “to be” and is related to God’s personal name in Hebrew, “YHWH.” So whenever Jesus referred to Himself as “I AM,” He was making an explicit claim to deity. Jesus calls Himself “I AM” twenty-three times in the Gospel of John!
(10) Jesus Claimed to be All-Glorious
Glory refers to the outward display of God’s majestic and brilliant attributes. God is all-glorious. Yet just before His death, Jesus prayed to the glorious Father in heaven and claimed that divine glory for Himself. Jesus said to the Father, “Glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, father with the glory which I had with Thee before the world existed” (John 17:5). Here Jesus declared in a prayer the truth that before His incarnation, in eternity past He shared equal glory with eternal God.
(11) Jesus claimed to be the Savior
In the last year of His ministry as He was headed from Galilee to the cross, Jesus declared to the crowds, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). Here Jesus overtly claimed to be the Savior of the world. He had just saved the compromised tax-collector, Zacchaeus of Jericho, of his sins (19:9). The Old Testament clearly taught that the only Savior of sinners was God. God said through Isaiah the prophet, “There is no other God beside Me, a righteous God and Savior” (45:5-6). Yet Jesus claimed to be the definitive Savior of sinners. He could only do so if He was in fact God. And He was; His very name, “Jesus,” means “YHWH saves.”
(12) Jesus Claimed to Forgive Sins
In keeping with His claim to be Savior, Jesus also claimed to forgive sins. While teaching in Nazareth on one occasion Jesus told His audience, “The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Matt 9:6). He said this in response to the scribes and Pharisees who accused Him of blasphemy for telling a paralytic in the crowd, “Your sins are forgiven” (9:2). When Jesus claimed He could grant forgiveness of sins, the Jewish leaders knew “God alone” can forgive sins (Mark 5:21). Jesus agreed that only God can forgive sins, and thus claimed to be God.
(13) Jesus Claimed to Omnipresent
After Jesus rose from the dead and before He ascended into heaven, Jesus gave the Great Commission to the early church. To guarantee their success Jesus promised them His divine power and He also made a claim to deity when He said, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20). Jesus was promising His followers that His literal, abiding presence would be with them wherever they went; and that included all of them, as they would be dispersed abroad. Only God could fulfill such a promise, for He is omnipresent, meaning He is conscious of and active at every place in the universe simultaneously. Even now, as He reigns in heaven in His physical glorified body, Jesus is omnipresent; only a prayer away from every human soul.
(14) Jesus Claimed to be Omnipotent
Moving from the Gospels and the description of Jesus’ humble ministry as the Suffering Servant onto Jesus’ post-resurrection ministry as glorified Lord, John portrays Jesus making many more explicit claims to deity. In Revelation 1:8 Jesus said, “I am…the Almighty”! This is an explicit claim to deity by Jesus. By Almighty, He meant Almighty God.
(15) Jesus Claimed to be Immutable
In the same verse in Revelation Jesus also claimed to be immutable when He declared of Himself, “I am the One who is, who was and who is to come” (1:8). This is an affirmation of having a nature that never changes, one who is always constant. Only God is unchanging or immutable in essential nature. Scripture teaches that God is immutable. God said so about Himself: “I am the Lord, and I do not change” (Mal 3:6). God does not change because He is utterly perfect in His nature. So also is Jesus. The New Testament affirms that Jesus is the same, yesterday today and forever (Heb 13:8). In Revelation 1:8 the risen Christ declares this truth with His own mouth.
(16) Jesus Claimed to be Eternal
Again in Revelation 1 the risen Christ says of Himself, “I am the Alpha and Omega; I am the first and the last….I am alive for evermore” (1:8). Here Jesus claims to be eternal, having no beginning but having always existed. Around 740 BC God said through Isaiah the prophet that as God he was “the first and the last” (41:4). In Revelation 1 Jesus claims that title of the eternal God for Himself! Jesus claimed to be eternal God.
Conclusion
Jesus asked people several times during His ministry years, “Who do you say that I am?” Many of them got it wrong. But those who believed in Him as a result of the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit and the grace-revealing work of the Father, came to know Jesus personally for who He really was, the one and only Savior of the world, fully God and fully man, eternally one with the Father and the Spirit, and the one who deserves our devoted worship. Just as the magi, the great king-makers of the East, followed the divinely appointed star to the place where Christ was born so that they could bow before Him in adoration and worship (Matt 2:11), so also let us make that the priority of another Christmas season that is set before us.