Jesus Says He is God.

Continued from previous post...

If Not Good - Not God. 

by I.M. Haldeman

Against this exaltation of Christ as merely a good man, and the persistent denial that he was God, stands the unmistakable claim which Jesus Christ himself made - that he was God.

Jesus made the claim to be God in many ways.
He claimed it by declaring his power and authority to forgive sin.
That was a striking moment when he proclaimed it for the first time. Four men had brought a paralytic to the house where he was preaching. When they could not get in because of the crowd, they climbed up on the roof, took off some of the tiling, and by means of ropes or corners of the mattress let the man down to the very feet of Jesus. When he saw their faith, he turned to the sick man and said, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

At once there was an uproar. The leading men, sitting round and watching him, burst out with a protest, charging him with blasphemy, saying that God only could forgive sin.
And they were right.
No mere man can forgive sin. Again and again the Scriptures teach us that forgiveness is with God that he may be feared.

In announcing the man's sins forgiven, Jesus clearly claimed the prerogative, power and authority which belong to God.

He claimed this equality by declaring himself to be the Son of God. The the Jews, "Son of God" was equivalent to "God the Son." It meant to them, the moment he styled himself by that name, an unqualified claim to essential equality with the Father. Because of this they raged against him and would have killed him, crying out that he had made himself equal with God.

He made this claim in terms which admit of no misunderstanding. he said, "I and the Father are one."
When Philip said, "Show us the Father and it will be enough," he answered and said, "Have you been with me so long a time and have you not known me, Philip? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." He also said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life - no man comes to the Father but by me."

By this statement he deliberately shut out all other men as the ground and means of approach to God. He declares that God, the Father, can be found in and through him alone; that he is the supreme way, the very truth and the very life; not that he knows some truth and has a measure of life in common with men, but that he is the truth - the Absolute life. Such attitude, such claimed rights, privileges and powers belong alone to God.

But he goes beyond this. He testifies that he has been from all eternity the manifestation of the very self-hood of the Father. Hear what he says:
"And now, O Father, glorify me with your own self, with the glory which I had with you before the world was."

He traces his personality backward beyond the hour when the world was launched into space, before the stellar systems were created. he goes beyond time and takes us into eternity.

Such claims as these are the claims of one who declares himself to be, and without restraint, nothing less than Almighty God.