02-12-2007, 02:58 PM
<b>Jesus Christ
Son of God
Son of Man
Messiah
</b>
(According to the Gospels)
<i>Christ claimed to be God, because He made claims that God alone can make.</i>
<b>He claimed to be God, the Judge of al mankind.</b> "When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him ... before Him will be gathered all the nations, and He will separate them one from another" (St Matthew 25:31-46). It is only God who can speak of Himself thus. It is only God who can read the hearts of the countless of millions of mankind, and apportion to each individual his deserts. In the continuation of the same passage, he says that He will tell the good on the day of judgement that in befriending the needy they were befriending Him, and He will tell the wicked that in neglecting the needy they were neglecting Him. He identifies Himself, therefore, with God, whom good men please and wicked men displease.
<b>He claimed to be God the Lawgiver.</b> The Pharisees accused the disciples of Jesus of having violated the Sabbath. Jesus replied that the "Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath" (St Matthew 12:18). This is to say, the Sabbath observance may be set aside by Him, viz., God, who instituted it. He said, in the Sermon on the Mount: "You have heard that it was said to the men of old, 'You shall be liable to judgement" (St Matthew 5:21-22; cf. vv. 28, 32, 34, 39, 44). And, throughout the discourse, He returns repeatedly to the same emphatic declaration: "You have heard ... <i>But I say to you</i>". Had He claimed to be no more than a mere human envoy of God, He would never have spoken thus: to do so would have been the vilest blasphemy and arrogance. He would instead have adhered with the strictest reverence and humility to the formula: "But God now bids me to say to you." The words He actually spoke show Him as claiming to enlarge and re-interpret the Ten Commandments on His own personal authority. But such authority can be possessed by God alone, the giver of the Law on Sinai.
<b>He claimed to be Omnipotent. He claimed to be a Divine Person, God the Son, equal in power to the Father.</b> "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me" (St Matthew 28:18). "All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him" (St Luke 10:22). He claimed to possess a power which only God could possess, power over the angels and all creatures, whether in heaven or on earth. But while making this claim, He stated clearly that He was not the only Person in God. He spoke of Himself as the Son who had received all things from the Father to whom He was mysteriously united in mutual knowledge, and whom He alone at His pleasure could make known to men.
<b>He claimed to be God the Son, one in nature with the Father.</b> When Jesus stood before the Sanhedrin on Good Friday morning, "the High Priest asked Him, 'Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?' And Jesus said, 'I am; and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.' And the High Priest tore his mantle, and said, 'Why do we still need witnesses? You have heard his blasphemy" (St Mark 14:61-64; cf St Matthew 26:63-66). What was the blasphemy? It was the claim of Jesus to be the true Son of God, one in nature with the Father. It was for that blasphemy they condemned Him.
<b>He claimed divine prerogatives.</b> The Jews said to Him: "'You are not yet fifty years old, and You have seen Abraham?' Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am'" (St John 8:57-58). "The Father ... has given all judgement to the Son, that all may honour the Son, even as they honour the Father" (St John 5:22-23). Before He suffered, He prayed to His Father: "Father, Glorify Thou Me in Thy own presence, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was made. ... All Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine" (St John 17:5, 10, 19).
<b>The Jews knew He claimed to be God.</b> Jesus said to the Jews: "I and the Father are one." They were about to stone Him for these words "because", they said, "You, being a man, make Yourself God" (St John 10:30-33). Jesus, replying to the Jews who were offended because He had cured a sick man on the Sabbath day, said, "My Father is working still, and I am working." Whereupon they "sought all the more to kill Him, because He ... called God His Father, making Himself equal with God." Jesus, far from saying that they had misunderstood Him, answered: "... for whatever [the Father] does, that the Son does likewise ... For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He will" (St John 10:38).
<b>The acts of Jesus testify that He claimed to be God.</b> Jesus performed His many miracles, not merely as the ambassador of God, but as God Himself: "even though you do not believe Me, believe the works", i.e., the miracles, "that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me and I am in the Father" (St John 10:38). He allowed men to adore Him as God (St John 9:35-38; cf. St Matthew 14:33; 15:25; 17:14). He forgave sin as of His own independent power. "My son, your sins are forgiven", He said to the man sick of the palsy. When the Scribes ask themselves indignantly, "Who can forgive sins but God alone?", He does not deny the assertion implied in their question, viz., "it is only God who can forgive sin", but goes on to reaffirm the claim He has already made. "'But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins'---He said to the paralytic---'I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home.' And he rose, and immediately took up the pallet and went out before them all: (St Mark 2:5-12). To Mary Magdalen, who had kissed His feet and bathed them with her tears, He said, "Your sins are forgiven." And to those who sat at table with Him on the same occasion, He said, "her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much" (St Luke 7:47-8).
<b>The Apostles and Disciples knew that Christ claimed to be God.</b> No one denies that, after the death of Christ, His followers, both Jews and Gentiles, preached His Divinity, and that they suffered and died in testimony thereof (Acts 3:14-15; 5:41; 7:55-58; 15:26), facts which can be explained only by their knowledge that He Himself had claimed to be the Son of God.
<i>(Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine - Archbishop Michael Sheehan & Father Peter Joseph)</i>