Did Jesus claim to be God?

Answer 1

Yes, very much so.

There are far too many references to cite, but here are some of the things he did and said, and the consequences. If you would like to know chapter and verse, I suggest you message me.

1. Jesus forgave others' sin. In the Jewish faith this was possible only for God and then only by sacrifice at the Temple. Yet Jesus forgave in his own name.

2. Jesus performed miracles in his own name, not God's. Moses' miracles, for example (eg the parting of the Red Sea) were performed in God's name, not Moses.

3. Jesus taught with his own authority ("You have heard it said...but I tell you this...")

4. Jesus used the name of God (YHWH = 'I am') on many occasions (eg 'I am the way, the truth and the life...', '...before Abraham was, I am...' and so on.

5. Jesus claimed that he and the Father 'are one', that 'I am in the Father and the Father is in me..', that 'he who has seen me has seen the Father' - plus many other identifications with the Father God and Holy Spirit.

6. The disciples recognised Jesus as God incarnate, After the resurrection, even Thomas the doubter fell to his knees before him and called Jesus 'My Lord and my God'.

7. Jesus accepted worship -- unthinkable blasphemy if he wasn't who he said he was.

8. Even those who opposed him charged him with claiming to be God. On several occasions they tried to stone him for blasphemy, only finallly managing the execution of Jesus for blasphemy (claiming to be God) after a clandestine plot against him.

This is all well and good, if Jesus's claims were not substantiated. We could say that he's deluded, a fool, or deceitful. But his life shows the exact opposite. He was down to earth, a perfect human being and displayed no signs of being a fool or deluded - quite the opposite, in fact. The resurrection was his last great miracle that turned the lives of the disciples and all those who follow him even today totally upside down. No man before or since has had that effect on humanity.

So his claims were truly substantiated, and that Jesus, we have to conclude, not only claimed to be divine, but wasdivine - Emmanuel, God in human form.

Answer 2

There is an evolution through the history of gospel authorship that at first denies then affirms this to be true:

• In the earliest New Testament gospel, Jesus did not claim to be God, in fact he denied this in Mark 10:18: "And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God."
  
• In the next two gospels to be written (Matthew, Luke), Jesus does not deny being God, but neither does he make this claim.
  
• In John's Gospel, Jesus repeatedly and clearly implies that he is God.
  

Answer 3

Yes, according to Christian teachings, Jesus claimed to be divine and referred to himself as the Son of God. This belief forms the core of the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity.