Mary and I watched a documentary program about how people from India select spouses. Many have their spouse selected for them by their families. During this show they interviewed a mixed couple. She was a Hindu and he was a Catholic. As they talked they explained how they were raising their kids. The children had been baptized as catholic but were also being taught about Hinduism. The woman mentioned Jesus in the conversation and asked, “Jesus isn’t God is he? Isn’t he just a guru?”
This morning I read John chapter 8. Jesus makes some outlandish claims. Well They would be outlandish if he were just a guru but if he is God they are not outlandish at all.
Jesus said he is the light of the world.
Jesus claimed the God of the Jews as his father.
Jesus claimed to precede Abraham and that Abraham saw his day and rejoiced.
Jesus guaranteed eternal life to those that believe in him.
Christianity claims one of the most bizarre things ever heard and that is not that a man became God, but that God became a man. We believe that Jesus is God and that belief is partially based on a statement he made recorded in John chapter 8.
“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’; 55 and you have not come to know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar like you, but I do know Him and keep His word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” So the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.”
John 8:54-59 – NASB
When Jesus used the the words “I am” he was using the same name that God used to define himself to Moses back in Exodus 3.
“Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “ I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘ I AM has sent me to you.’” God, furthermore, said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘ The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations.
Exodus 3:13-15 –
These words, this title, this name was sacred to the Jews, it was blasphemous to misuse it yet Jesus claimed the name for himself.
Jesus is God. And God in human form after living a sinless life, willingly gave up his life, he died a sacrificial death to pay for sins that we as a race of people, could not, cannot, will not, ever be good enough to pay for ourselves. God became man to die in our place to pay for all of our sins.
Jesus is God in flesh and blood. Our God is one God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
We may put Jesus claim to divinity into the “Yeah right…” sarcasm category but In John chapter 9 Jesus does something divine, he heals a man born blind.
“As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, “ Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.” When He had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes, and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated, Sent). So he went away and washed, and came back seeing. Therefore the neighbors, and those who previously saw him as a beggar, were saying, “Is not this the one who used to sit and beg?” Others were saying, “This is he,” still others were saying, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the one.” So they were saying to him, “How then were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man who is called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash’; so I went away and washed, and I received sight.” They said to him, “Where is He?” He *said, “I do not know.”
John 9:1-12 –
A man can’t fix eyes born blind, a surgeon might be able to with scalpel and a team of experts but a God who became a man, can fix eyes born blind by smearing mud made from spit and dirt and having him wash in in a pool called Siloam.
Jesus claimed divinity and then he graciously showed divinity through healing blindness.
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