Jesus, the Son of God
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2021 · 6 June 2021
The Jews didn’t mistake His claims. They knew Jesus was claiming deity. They knew He was claiming to be equal with God. And so immediately, we go from His claim at the end of verse 31, “They pick up stones.” Then verse 32, “Jesus said, “At my Father’s direction I have done many good works. For which one are you going to stone me?” Jesus stops them with the stones in their hands.
The majestic calm of Jesus here is really amazing. He stops them dead in their violent tracks. Not surprising because He evacuated the temple at the beginning of His ministry; He’ll do it again at the end, and it was full of tens of thousands of people who fled as fast as they could, simply because of the power He had. When they came to arrest Him, the temple police came back without Him.
They said, “Well, why don’t you bring Him?” And they said, “No man ever spoke like this man.” Just His words stopped their action. And as violent as these Jews were, as out of control as their anger was, He stopped them with His words. Their arms are lowered, apparently in verse 33, “They replied, “We’re stoning you not for any good work, but for blasphemy! You, a mere man, claim to be God.”
This complete calm of Jesus subdued the violence. His statement is sensible, reasonable and rational. “At my Father’s direction I have done many good works. For which one are you going to stone me?” “At my Father’s direction” is the key phrase. Nicodemus had said in John 3, “No one can do the things You do unless God is with Him.” Nicodemus knew this couldn’t be satanic. It had to be divine.
He knew it was supernatural. It had to come from God. That was the obvious conclusion because of the moral perfection of Christ, the magnificence and beauty of the works that He did. Jesus didn’t do evil works, the kinds of things that come from hell. He said, “I showed you many good works.” Kalos. Excellent and noble. Not just morally good, but expansively and beautiful works.
His miracles were wonders of joy, giving sight to blind people, and hearing to deaf people, and a voice to those who were mute. Jesus gave new limbs to the paralyzed, and new organs to the diseased, and new life to the dead. They were just unparalleled miracles of wonder and beauty. So for which of the good work from the Father do you stone Me? This just stops them.
They said, “We’re stoning you not for any good work, but for blasphemy! You, a mere man, claim to be God.” We’re stoning You for blasphemy. And based on the Mosaic Law, a blasphemer had to be stoned. They thought they were carrying out their righteous duty. There are people now who have denied the humanity of Christ, who have said that He was some kind of a phantom.
But in the Jewish leader’s minds, clearly He was a man. This was not debatable. This was not open to question. Everyone knew He was a man. First John says if you deny that the Son of God, the Messiah, has come in the flesh, you’re judged by God. He is a man. He was born the way men are born. He lived as a child and as a young man, and was fully human in every sense.
So, you are a blasphemer because You being a man, make Yourself out to be God, which in their minds is the ultimate and extreme blasphemy. So, they feel it is their religious duty to kill Him at that very moment. The stones may be still in their hands. But, for whatever reason, no stone is thrown. And it has to be the very divine restraint imposed on them by the Son of God Himself.
And He causes them to have to think. Look at verse 34-36, “Jesus replied, “It is written in your own Scriptures that God said to certain leaders of the people, ‘I say, you are gods!’ 35 And you know that the Scriptures cannot be altered. So if those people who received God’s message were called ‘gods,’ 36 why do you call it blasphemy when I say, ‘I am the Son of God’? After all, the Father set me apart and sent me into the world.”
Jesus says, “Could you just be objective for a minute? Can you just think with me for a moment? Can you set aside your fury, emotion and hate? Stop and consider the Old Testament. Why are you so angry that I am calling Myself God? When in your own Scripture, men are called gods. This shows the mental ability of Jesus, who is able to find in an instant the Old Testament and pluck out a psalm.
Look at Psalm 82, because that’s what He quoted. Psalm 82 is a judgment by God on the rulers of Israel. Verse 1, “God presides over heaven’s court; He pronounces judgment on the rulers.” And these rulers were judges, who adjudicated issues and solved problems. Verse 2 says, “How long will you hand down unjust decisions by favoring the wicked? You are the ones that are corrupt.”
You’re supposed to be their protectors. Verse 3, “Give justice to the poor and the orphan; uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destitute.” Verse 4, “Rescue the poor and helpless; deliver them from the grasp of evil people.” Verse 5, But these oppressors know nothing; they are so ignorant! They wander about in darkness, while the whole world is shaken to the core.”
Everything that holds together society is loose because there’s no justice. Verse 6, “I say, ‘You are gods; you are all children of the Most High.” What does He mean? You are the representatives of the one true God. You are God’s agents in the world. You are the sons of the Most High. He is delegated authority to you, and you receive His Word. That’s also what it says in John 10.
If God called them gods to whom the Word of God came, they were the ones who were to teach, and apply and uphold the Word of God. Verse 7-8, “But you will die like mere mortals and fall like every other ruler.’ And you think you are more than you really are. “But you will die like men, and fall like every other ruler. 8 Arise, O God, judge the earth! For it is You who possesses the nations.”
Jesus says, “In the Old Testament, corrupt judges were called gods.” But the word was used for them because they received the Word of God, and they were the agents of God. Well, if God Himself in Scripture called them gods, to whom the Word of God came. Do you say of Him, whom the Father sent into the world, “You are blaspheming because I said, ‘I am the Son of God?’”
In this encounter, Jesus makes an amazing statement in verse 35. He says, “To whom the Word of God came,” and, “the Scripture cannot be broken.” The Word of God and the Scripture are synonyms. The Holy Spirit here, inspires John to write the words of our Lord Jesus accurate, and the Lord Jesus equates the Word of God with the Scripture, and the Scripture with the Word of God.
That one phrase is real important. What does He mean? Scripture cannot be broken? The word broken, it’s not a word like broken in English. The word is luō in the Greek, which means dismissed, eliminated. So what is our Lord saying? Scripture cannot be changed. This passage is Christ’s view of Scripture, that it is a seamless chain, and not one link can be pulled out. Not one.
The passage itself in Psalm 82 has no connection to His deity, but He uses that word, “gods,” there to make a point from the lesser to the greater. But He stops in the middle of that and makes this powerful, overarching statement that Scripture cannot be broken. And while He’s very busy proving that His claim to deity is valid by His works, He doesn’t try to prove this statement. Scripture cannot be broken.
Why doesn’t Jesus prove it? Because they don’t question that. They understand that. It’s a chain. All the links have to be in place. Scripture is the final word. You can’t tamper with Scripture. In fact, He makes His whole argument on one word in one obscure verse in a Psalm. You can’t loosen a word and pull it out. That’s because all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.
So, whenever we get into discussions about the authority, the inerrancy, the accuracy, the inspiration of Scripture, we need to start with: what did Jesus think of Scripture? Because His view is God’s view. You can’t pull a word out. And our Lord, in a discussion about the most serious claim He could ever make, turns His argument on one word. On just one word. This was His view of Scripture.
Let us look at another illustration. Matthew 22:23-33, “That same day Jesus was approached by some Sadducees—religious leaders who say there is no resurrection from the dead.” Why did they say that? Because they believed that the first five books of Moses, the Pentateuch, were authored by God, and all the rest of the Old Testament was human commentary on the first five books.
And Moses didn’t write about resurrection. They saw themselves as the preservers of the true religion, by rejecting all oral tradition, all written tradition and all rabbinical tradition. So they want to confound Jesus about the resurrection. So they tell them this story about seven brothers. There was a law in the Old Testament that if a man died, his brother, if he was unmarried, would marry his wife and care for her.
So in this situation of seven brothers, the first marries and dies, no children. The second marries and dies. All the way down to the seventh. And so they ask, whose wife will she be in heaven? Verse 29, “Jesus replied, “You don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God. 30 For when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. In this respect they will be like the angels in heaven.”
Let’s get back to the resurrection. Verse 31-32, “But now, as to whether there will be a resurrection of the dead—haven’t you ever read about this in the Scriptures? Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, and He quotes Exodus 3:6 where God says: 32 “‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”
If there’s no resurrection, God should have said, “I was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” But when He says, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” it is to say that they are now alive, and the whole argument turns not only on a word, but on a tense, which is the present tense. What was Jesus’ view of Scripture? You can’t take out a word. And you cannot touch a tense or change anything.
Let us go back to John 10:36-38, “Why do you call it blasphemy when I say, ‘I am the Son of God’? After all, the Father set me apart and sent me into the world.” 37, “Don’t believe me unless I carry out my Father’s work.” 38, “But if I do his work, believe in the evidence of the miraculous works I have done, even if you don’t believe me. Then you will know and understand that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father.”
How does Jesus prove that He is God? Believe the works, so you may know and understand. The only way to eternal life is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, to believe He is God in human flesh. You can’t possibly call me a blasphemer if you look at My works. And the notion that I do what I do by the power of hell is merely a revelation of the corruption of your own heart.
Verse 39, “Once again they tried to arrest him, but he got away and left them.” It didn’t matter what He said. They were fixed in their unbelief. And they would scream for His blood all the way till they saw the Romans nail Him to a cross. He disappeared. They could not kill Him, because His hour had not come. They weren’t able for three months, until God’s timing was perfect in the final Passover.
But there’s a delightful ending. There are not only rejecters; there are also receivers of the truth. Verse 40, “He went beyond the Jordan River near the place where John was first baptizing and stayed there awhile.” He went away for three months to a place called Bethany. This is different than the Bethany which was adjacent to Jerusalem where Mary, Martha and Lazarus lived.
This was where John began his ministry. So, where John began his ministry is where Jesus ended His. So He was staying there until John 11 when He comes back during the Passover time, to enter Jerusalem to die. Verse 41, “And many followed Him. “John didn’t perform miraculous signs,” they remarked to one another, “but everything he said about this man has come true.”
Now there’s a mandate for a preacher. We don’t do miracles. John the Baptist performed no signs. But everything John said about Jesus Christ is true. That’s what ministry is. John was beheaded. But they remembered what he said. It might’ve been that there was a community of people there. And John showed from the Old Testament how Jesus was the Messiah.
These are the people who saw the miracles and believed they were from God, and John’s ministry comes to fruition long after he was dead. There was the echo of what he said about Jesus that was proven true through the works of Christ. And as a result, verse 42, “And many who were there believed in Jesus.” Do you believe the works of Jesus as supernatural?
And if He is God, then you must believe that He is who He claimed to be. If you believe, you receive salvation, eternal life, forgiveness of sins, a place in God’s family, the gift of the Holy Spirit, promise of heavenly glory, everlasting bliss and joy. That’s the gospel. That’s the Christian message, and it comes from Scripture, and Scripture always tells the truth. Let us pray.