Question: If the Divinity of Christ is so important to Christian Faith, why is he not stating His divinity overtly?Before we begin to attempt to answer this question, we must first understand something: we have to view the socio-political context wherein Christ was living in. Christ was born a Jew and lived in a Jewish land. We would then have to understand the Jewish mindset. To the Jews, the Laws were very important, and so was the Torah. Jews were monotheistic, believing that there is only one God, as written in Deuteronomy 6:4. To them, there was only Yahweh. At that time, in their context, they do not possess the understanding of the Trinity as we do today.
Now, let us put our imaginative powers into gear. Imagine what would have happened if Jesus had overtly stated His divinity? Imagine what would happen if Jesus had said "Hey, people of Israel! I am God". In a simple phrase: His ministry would have ended before it even started. To the Jews, as aforementioned, they believe that there is only one God, and that is Yahweh. If Jesus had overtly claimed to be God, to the Jews, is suggesting polytheism, which is not in accordance to Deut. 6:4! They would have charged Him for blasphemy and the penalty for blasphemy was stoning (Lev 24:16). Wouldn't that cut short His ministry?
Does that mean that Jesus did not imply that He was divine? On the contrary, He actually did, not explicitly but implicitly implied that He was divine. He claimed authorities and prerogatives that are inappropriate if claimed by someone less than God. He claimed the prerogative to forgive sin (which the Jews understood as claiming divinity as shown by the reaction of the Pharisees, i.e. in Mark 2:5-7), claimed authority over the Sabbath, and even claimed unusual relationships with the Father, like being one with the Father. While some verses in the Bible might seem vague to us, the Jews certainly understood that Christ was implicitly claiming divinity, and thus, the premise for them to want to stone Jesus for blasphemy.
In conclusion, Jesus was wise and knew that the time was not yet to overtly claim His divinity (or even claim to be God, for that matter) as He was clear of what His purpose on earth was. He needed to show His divinity to prove that He had the power and authority to fulfill His work on earth yet at the same time, it could not threaten His fulfilling of His purpose on earth. To me, that pretty much sums up my opinion on why didn't Jesus overtly claim His divinity yet in small, little ways, show that He was divine.
Hi Bryan,
ReplyDeleteJust a wonder, if Jesus like you said did make an implicit claim to Divinity that was understood by the Jews, then why didn't they stone Him alredy?
And even to the end He did not make an explicit claim to God. But how then did they convict Him? And in the end they killed man that didn't claim to be God on the charge that He said Himself to be God. Tricky isn't it?
Whats your take?
Yo bro!
ReplyDeleteWah... Really a sticky question... I did my reading up to answer your question but I have yet to find one that answers why did not the Jews stone Him already. But one thing was for certain, at least once, on the account of blasphemy, the Jews wanted to stone Jesus (John 8:59). As of the other accounts, only one or two like forgiving sin was it associated with claiming the prerogatives of God. Other times, the accusations were not explicitly about Jesus claiming to be God (or divine, for that matter), inferring that probably for those claims, they didn't understand (or had no solid proof) that as Jesus was claiming His divinity . Based on another inference we can also make, it could be that Jesus was getting more and more popular and because of his popularity, the people were so amazed at his works that they could not stone him there and then as that would incite a riot.
This would then lead to the question, on what basis then was He crucified? I spent about 4 hours trying to reconcile the different versions, finding out on what basis did they accuse him of blasphemy that they could not earlier on? We know that Jesus was brought to the Sanhedrin council, with the Sadducee, Caiaphas as the leader of the Sanhedrin. John 11:47-52 shows us the reason why the Council wanted Jesus to die: a political reason rather than one of religion. But they needed a reason to condemn Him to death. The best accusation deserving death was blasphemy. So, Caiaphas asked the question about His Christness and sonship to God. It was here that presented a problem for me. Which part of Jesus' answer did they accuse him of blasphemy which they could not earlier in Jesus' life? I did my readings and finally found one which would probably be able to harmonize the issues. According to 'legal procedure', the leader of the Sanhedrin should vote last. Eventhough Caiaphas was fair in asking what their decision was instead of making one by himself, but he accused Jesus of blasphemy even before any voting was made. According to the author, probably the accusation of Caiaphas influenced the decision of the other Sanhedrin members. In a nutshell, to Caiaphas, it was a political threat condemned to death with blasphemy as an excuse (as the Sanhedrin's power was limited to matters pertaining to religion).
A really tricky question but I hope I have probably shed a little light on the matter. Maybe you can give your input to help in shedding more light? Lol~
Dear Bryan,
ReplyDeleteI agreed with you on the first three paragraphs. But, in my opinion, when you said that “He needed to show His divinity to prove that He had the power and authority to fulfill His work on earth”, I prefer to view the implicit claims of Jesus are not to prove His authority, but to correct the wrong principle of law-keeping, to reveal about God, to teach the truth of the kingdom of God, and to prepare them for the coming redemption. His implicit claims on His divinity are waiting for the right timing to be understood by the believers. That is, after His resurrection, ascension and outpouring of the Holy Spirit who will teach them all things and will remind them of everything He has said to them (John 14:26). Hope my opinion does not contradict with your point of view. Do correct me accordingly. Thanks!
Hi Cheryl,
ReplyDeleteYes, I do agree that all that you mentioned above are the things that Jesus did in His ministry on earth but was the implicit claims to divinity necessary for those reasons? Correcting the wrong principle of law-keeping, revealing about God, teaching the truth of the kingdom of God, and to prepare them for the coming redemption, didn't the prophets and teachers of old did that too? They did not claim divinity, even implicitly but on the contrary, they recognized that they are but humans. Well, I may be wrong, and if so, do point out ya. We're all learning together. LOL.
In my opinion, Jesus main mission on earth was to seek and save that which was lost (Lk 19:10). Now, in my opinion, if lets say Jesus did not implicitly claim His divinity, we would not know that He is divine and thus, He died as just another criminal; human. It is because of His claims that we know, in a certain sense, that Christ was divine, with all the authority and prerogative of God. Then, salvation is possible as the Son of God (as we know Him to be), came to earth to die for our sins. Not just a normal man like you and me, but rather a divine being; God Himself. Well, these are just my thoughts on this matter la... Thanks for the input!
Bryan thanks for the reply. good dig, I honestly haven't cross checked your findings, and I didn't know you had to spend so much time Digging into the Word of God to find out.
ReplyDeleteBut thank you for your findings, it helped the second part of the question I posted. But then to add on to my first part of the question, if the Sanhedrin as you say want to stone Him and it would have caused a riot, then why when they wanted to convince Pilate to crucify Jesus, they could turn the people who saw Jesus and experienced His ministry to want Him dead.
See if in the first place, these people would riot when the Pharisees and Sadducees tried to stone Jesus, then why did they turn their back on Him?