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First, let us examine the cultural context of Jesus’ day. It is only within a proper understanding of the world that Jesus lived in, that we can hope to gain a perspective of the magnitude and ramifications of His actions. At the time of Jesus, it was customary and necessary for Jewish spiritual leaders to speak in the authority of someone other than themselves. They would say, “thus saith the Lord” or they would quote Moses, Isaiah, Daniel, or any of the other prior accepted spiritual authorities. This was vital as to establish the direct transfer of authenticity of and authority of doctrine from generation to generation. This understanding of religious tradition brings me to my first point.

Jesus always spoke in His own authority.

Even though His culture, tradition and custom dictated this type of reference, He never did it. Not once did Jesus ever say, “Thus saith the Lord…” as did the previous prophets. A reading of the gospels in fact shows us that He always said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you.” Jesus also never retracted anything He said, never guessed or spoke with uncertainty, never made revisions, never contradicted Himself, and never apologized for what He said.  Jesus also made a bold assertion in Mark 13:31 when He said that “heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away”. Other examples of Jesus speaking on His own authority include: John 3:5 – Jesus answered, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” John 3:11 - “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.”

People were consistently amazed by the way that Jesus spoke.

The teachings of Jesus had a profound effect on people.  His listeners always seemed to understand that these were not the words of an ordinary man. For example, in John 7:46 the scriptures tell us that when some Jewish leaders asked the temple guards why they had not arrested Jesus when He spoke, they responded, “No one ever spoke the way this man does”. Likewise, it is recorded in Luke 4:32 that when He taught in Capernaum on the Sabbath, the people “were amazed at His teaching”.  In another instance, after the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7, “the crowds were amazed at His teaching, because He taught as one who had authority and not as their teachers of the law”.

Jesus claimed equality with God.

In John 10:30 Jesus says, “I and the Father are one.” What did Jesus mean when He said this? Some people have wrongly concluded that Jesus was claiming to be the Father in this verse. Others have wrongly suggested that this verse implies that the Father must have a physical body like Jesus does. Still others have claimed that Jesus was simply indicating that He and the Father are one in their mission or one in their purpose. While it is absolutely true that Jesus and the Father are one in purpose, that is not what Jesus is talking about in this verse. It is important to remember that immediately upon hearing Jesus say this, verse 31 tells us that “the Jews took up stones again to stone him”.  The penalty for blasphemy, according to Old Testament law, was death by stoning. Jesus, upon seeing them with stones in hand responds to this by saying, “Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?” We are then given an explanation of the reason for their anger in verse 33 which says, “The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.” Yet, even in light of the impending judgement from the Jewish crowd, Jesus did not respond by saying, “I was mistaken. I was not claiming to be God; I was merely claiming to have the same mission as God.”  The Jews also claimed to have a unity of purpose with God and would not have tried to stone Jesus for that. They understood Jesus as He intended to be understood. He was claiming to be deity and they recognized that claim in so much as they tried to stone Him for blasphemy. It is clear from their reactions that they understood Jesus to be claiming to be God. This is a non-negotiable point.

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