(For newcomers, I strongly recommend you first read the post “Introducing the Bible Bar Graph,” which explains
the BBG project’s purpose and scope. This post contains one of many themes I’ll be teasing out of the BBG data. – S)

1. The nature of righteousness: letter vs. spirit
2. Jesus’ identity
3. Jesus’ associations

Today we’ll look at the second of these.

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As we saw from our earlier analyses of the supremacy of Christ and Deity of Christ categories, one of the chief sources of the audacious claims about Jesus’s identity was Jesus Himself. After all, He claimed to have Divine authority (Matt. 28:18-19), including the chutzpah to forgive sins (Mark 2:5-7), to judge all humanity (Matt. 25:31-32), to be the exclusive gatekeeper to the presence (John 14:6) and knowledge (Luke 10:22) of God. He claimed to be the only perfect person (John 8:46), and to be the offspring of the Deity rather than merely a created being (John 3:16).

Needless to say, the Scribes and the Pharisees didn’t like this.

Here are some of the more famous clashes involving Jesus’s identity that pepper the New Testament’s pages, some of which turned to violence:

Jesus said… “I and the Father are one.”

The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.” – John 10:30-33

Check out this exchange:

Jesus said, “you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.”

They answered him, “Abraham is our father.”

Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did.”

They said to him, “We are not illegitimate children! We have one Father — even God.”

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but He sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

Ouch! Then moments later,

Jesus said to them, “If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”

The Jews answered him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?!”

Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and He is the judge. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”

The Jews said to him, “Now we know that you’re demon-possessed! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? Who do you think you are?”

Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ But you have not known Him. I know Him. If I were to say that I do not know Him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know Him and I keep His word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”

So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and you’ve seen Abraham?!”

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. — John 8:46-59

Let me also highlight a verse from one of last week’s passages:

“The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” — Mark 2:28

You’ll recall this was spoken in the context of the Pharisees whining that Jesus’s disciples were picking grains of wheat to eat, a supposed violation of the holy Sabbath day. At that point Jesus defended the disciples’ actions, both calling into question the Pharisees’ entire interpretation of the law and also referencing a striking OT example of a violation of the law nevertheless being justified. And then, just as He finishes those remarks…Jesus casually drops this nuclear bomb. “Not only are you guys misinterpreting what the Sabbath was intended to be, but I myself am actually sovereign over that entire institution.” Wow. No wonder so many stones were nearly thrown.

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There are plenty of similar passages, and I’ll include a full list in the third and final post of this mini-series. But in defense of Jesus’s enemies, I want to make one other important point today. Realize that if Jesus’s claims about himself were not true, the Pharisee’s anger at them is quite appropriate. The religious leaders are cast as the bad guys in all these exchanges, and they are — but there’s a kernel of truth in what they say and do.

Take the episode where Jesus forgives the paralytic his sins:

Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” — Mark 2:5-7

I love C.S. Lewis’s analysis of this scene (from Mere Christianity, Book II, chapter 3):

One part of the claim tends to slip past us unnoticed because we have heard it so often that we no longer see what it amounts to. I mean the claim to forgive sins: any sins.

Now unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous as to be comic. We can all understand how a man forgives offenses against himself. You tread on my toe and I forgive you; you steal my money and I forgive you. But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that he forgave you for treading on other men’s toes and stealing other men’s money?

Asinine fatuity is the kindest description we should give of his conduct. Yet this is what Jesus did. He told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured. He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offenses. This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin. — C.S. Lewis

The point is this: an ordinary mortal would be blaspheming if he/she claimed to forgive sins. Or to be “one” with the Father. Or to have existed from all eternity. Or to be the judge of all humankind. Or to be sinless him/herself. Or to be the exclusive gatekeeper to God.

I guess we’ll never know, in this world at least. But one thing’s for sure: if you ever doubt that Jesus did indeed have grandiose ideas of who he was, just look at the reaction of his enemies. I don’t think they would have been so worked up if he had merely said, “let’s just all be peaceful and happy.”

— S