Tue 13July2010
Over the past ten months since I stopped believing in the trinity and turned to YHVH, our Heavenly Father, as the Only True god, I've often been posed a question by well-meaning trinitarian Christian friends who are very concerned about my "falling away" from the Faith.
The question is, "Didn't our Lord Jesus himself claim to be God?" And it is usually substantiated by references to John 11:25, where our Lord said, "I am the resurrection and the life . . ." and also John 5:18, "Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God."
The Jews first accused our Lord Jesus of having broken the Sabbath.
Our Lord had just healed a sick man at the pool of Bethesda by Sheep gate of Jerusalem. This man had been an invalid for thirty-eight years of his life. It must have brought great joy to that man and all his family and friends.
Alas, it was not so for the Jews. For that day was the sabbath, and our Lord had told the man to pick up his mat and walk. To those Jews, the mere act of picking up one's mat and walking with it was tantamount to breaking the fourth commandment. Thus, both Jesus and the man whom he healed were accused of having broken the Sabbath.
On another occasion in Luke chapter 6, his disciples had merely picked some heads of grain, while walking through a grain field, rubbed them in their hands and ate the kernels.
The Pharisees took offence at that incident. In their eyes, the disciples had broken the fourth commandment. When questioned by some of the Pharisees, our Lord had told them in his reply that "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath".
Did Jesus break the Sabbath? All of us know that this accusation was based on narrow interpretations by those Jews on what constituted "working" on a Sabbath day. As such, their accusation was false, we know that Jesus didn't break the fourth commandment.
Similarly, the Jews also accused Jesus of making himself equal with God in John 5:18. Our question now is,
"Did Jesus claim to be God?"
In John 5: 26, 27, Jesus said "For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, 27 and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man."
This clearly shows that both life and authority were granted by the Father, who alone is the Only True God. As such, when Jesus said in John 11: 25 that he is the resurrection and the life, he did not mean that he is the ultimate source of life. Instead, he meant that he had life in himself which was granted by his Father in heaven.
Furthermore, in John 5:43, 44: Jesus also said, "I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive. 44 How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God?"
Again, without any doubt, it is clear that when Jesus described himself as having come in His Father's name, he meant he had come to seek the honor that came from the Only God!
Also, in Matthew 26:64, our Lord replied the High Priest who had put him under oath and asked him to state whether he was the Messiah, the Son of God:
"It is as you said. Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
Note that the Son of Man sits at the right hand of the Power (YHVH), the Son of Man is NOT the Power himself.
Eventually, at his crucifixion, the chief priests, along with the scribes and elders, mocked Jesus with these words, " . . . He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God." (Matthew 27:43)
Even his accusers acknowledged explicitly that he trusted in God, and it was for that reason that they mocked him at his crucifixion. They did not mock him for claiming to be God himself.
My brothers and sisters, I am certain that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ did not claim to be God.
