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Today we're exploring, did Jesus really say that he is God? I brought in a scholar, Dr.
Mikel de Rosario. Did Jesus ever really say, I'm God, guys, I'm claiming it?
Jesus is speaking like God does, and he's acting like God does. He's already acting like God. He is claiming to forgive sins.
Who can forgive sins but God alone? Well, yeah, that's a good point. When you walk like God and talk like God and command the wind like God, you basically are identifying yourself as God.
Jesus claimed to be God through a combination of his words and his deeds. Jesus is not just a human messiah, he's a divine messiah.
Well, did Jesus really say that he was God? Hello, hello, welcome to Biblically Speaking.
My name is Cassian Bellino, and I'm your host. In this podcast, we talk about the Bible in simple terms with experts,
PhDs, and scholarly theologians to make understanding God easier. These conversations have transformed my relationship with Christ and understanding of religion.
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Thank you so much for listening. Now let's get to the show. Hello, hello. Welcome to Biblically Speaking. I'm your host,
Cassian Bellino. Today we're exploring, did Jesus really say that he is God? What, where in the text does it say that?
I've heard that as like a common refute to the faith, and why we should believe in Jesus, but today we're going to explore four key examples in the
Gospel of Mark that point towards Jesus making this claim, and I brought in a scholar to explain this to us, and how these texts, they don't outright say, and then
Jesus said he was God here, and then Jesus said he was God here, but he does it in these distinct ways that we as Christians should be able to A, recognize and B, explain so we can share, because I feel like this is a quite common thing that I've heard many times.
So the scholar that I brought in is Dr. Mikel de Rosario. You're a strong guest for this because you are a professor of Bible and Theology at the
Moody Bible Institute. You've also previously served at Dallas Theological Seminary Hendrick Center, and that's where you've helped produce and host
The Table podcast. You also, you have notes for your THM, your
PhD, you work in apologetics, you have cultural engagement. You are built for this conversation. Welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate the invitation. So this is a pretty complicated topic.
How did you tackle it? Why did you tackle it? How did you get into this? I feel like this is one people usually shy away from.
Well, I think part of it is because conversations that I've had with people, whether they're inside the church, I've found people questioning, where did
Jesus say he's God, or reading critical scholars that cause them to doubt, and some people begin to wrestle with their faith because they can't find a place where it says that Jesus is
God, or they just haven't been pointed out, pointed to those areas in the Bible, or no one's explained it to them.
And then also in apologetics conferences, I've found that so many apologetics conferences will start out with a classical model, talking about the existence of God, some evidence for God's existence, maybe tackle the problem of evil, and then jump straight to the resurrection, but then it leaves people ill -prepared to actually talk about the identity of Jesus, which really is the thing that fills the resurrection with theological meaning.
And so I think we should be able to defend the claims of Jesus to be God, and also not just literarily, but do that historically as well.
And I think the historical side is where most Christians are ill -equipped to engage in that area. So personal experience doing ministry and getting in conversations with people, and then also seeing the way that we've handled that in church made me wanna tackle this question.
Super fair. Well, I applaud you for spending time on this because that's why you're here, so you can explain it to us. Okay, so when people are asking, did
Jesus ever really say, I'm God, guys, I'm claiming it? When people wonder, hey, did
Jesus ask that? Is that a fair question that we as Christians should be able to answer? Or are they asking, are they trying to just catch us in the wrong statement?
We really try to, we're trying to avoid blasphemy here. Well, it is a fair question, and this is something that somebody has brought up to me, even in a church setting, where do we ever get this idea that Jesus is
God? If he never even said he was God, why should we believe that? And so I think some people are looking for an explicit
I am God, and if they don't find that exact quote, they'll say, well, there you go, see, he never claimed to be
God, as if that's the only way to do it, as if you know better than Jesus living in his context the best way to explain his identity.
Saying it explicitly like that isn't the only way to do it, and a lot of people don't understand how implicit claims work in the
Gospels, so I think we need to appreciate the way Jesus is revealing his own identity in his own way, in his own culture, and we shouldn't confuse the directness of a claim with the existence of a claim.
So just because he's not being totally direct about it doesn't mean there's not a claim there. Illustration I like to give is I could tell you,
Cassie and I are married, that's an explicit claim to be married, or I could tell you, you know, it's going to be our 27th wedding anniversary this summer, and my wife and I are gonna do this and that, well, that's an implicit claim to be married, or I could just wear a wedding ring and not even say anything, but I'm acting like a married person, that's what married people do, and so I'm acting like a married person,
I'm speaking like a married person, and that's one way that Jesus revealed his identity that people don't often understand and fully appreciate, even
Christians, that Jesus is speaking like God does, and he's acting like God does, and so this is how implicit claims work in the
Gospels, and we need to appreciate how he is using a combination of his words and his deeds to introduce to people this idea that he's more than a man, that he's actually
God. That's super fair. I guess my next question would be like, okay, so he's not outright saying he's
God, he's already acting like God, he's already in that identity and acting as such, how did he know how
God would act? What would be the Jewish, yes, this is what God would do, but this is what
God wouldn't do, how did he know? Yeah, so what they were looking for is not, I mean, anybody could just say anything, right?
But what they're looking for is what are the things God does? And if you see somebody who's doing things only
God can do, that should actually make you stop and go, whoa, wait a second, what's going on here?
Who is this guy? He's able to do these things, he's speaking like God does, and he's either, as his enemies thought, a blasphemer, or he really is who he's claiming to be.
And so things like claiming to forgive sins, things like claiming to judge the sins of the world, or having power over nature, over demons, over disease, over death, all these different areas, it's not just one area, there's this cumulative case that's building up where people are having to wrestle with this idea of a human being has this kind of power, what's going on here?
And so Jesus is slowly by slowly, one step at a time, helping people to realize who he is by showing them, not just saying things, but by showing them his power and his authority.
Yeah, okay, that makes total sense when you say it. When we were prepping for this conversation, you suggested that we explore this by using
Mark, the book of Mark. Why did you choose Mark? Well, because I'll tell you that one story when this woman came up to me and said, why should we even take this seriously if Jesus never claimed to be
God? A lot of times we'll go to the Gospel of John first, and we'll say, look at these times where Jesus says,
I and the Father are one. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. And then what do the Jews do? They pick up stones to stone him for blasphemy, and they explicitly say, because you, a mere man, claim to be
God. Well, that's pretty obvious. Like they were not vague about what he was saying. It was pretty clear to them.
Well, then that woman said to me, you know, but that's in John written out in the 80s or the 90s. If Jesus really said things like that, then why don't we see a hint of a divine claim like that in the synoptics in Matthew, Mark, or Luke, and especially in Mark, because Mark, scholars believe, is the very first gospel that was written.
And so I wanted to work in Mark and show that actually you do have divine claims in Mark as well.
It doesn't look exactly like you see it in John, but if you understand in Jesus' Jewish context, you'll get why even his enemies, people who didn't even believe in him, why they heard it the same way.
They heard it loud and clear. Those who heard Jesus' divine claim and they believed it, but then others who didn't believe him, they still heard him as making divine claims, and that's why he was called a blasphemer.
So I chose Mark as the earliest one, and people always wanna ask, well, yeah, but can we see it in Mark? I thought,
I don't know. Let's see if we can show, even just with two scenes, that Jesus claimed to be divine in Mark.
Okay, great. And so we're gonna explore, I brought four, but we'll dive the deepest into the two that you feel the most comfortable in.
And just like going into this for like future reference, people that continue reading the
Bible and we don't discuss those verses today, how do we equip them to see
God in that? Should we be looking for, like what are like the winks from God saying like, this is Jesus saying he's
God? Is it his actions? Is it explicit words that he says? Is it a response? Like what can be the indicators of like, this is
Jesus saying he's God? I like how you said that, the little winks. Like there's something else going on here.
Yeah, Jesus always likes to say things that kind of confuse people, but then it makes them wonder who is this person really? Who is
Jesus really? And so there's things that he says and there's things that he does and they work together.
So they work together, not just words, not just his deeds, but together. So for example, his favorite way of talking about himself, we can get more into this when we talk about the healing of the paralytic and then his
Jewish examination, because it becomes a lot more explicit there. But just generally speaking, his favorite way of talking about himself is the son of man.
Now to us, if you're not really familiar with that in Jesus' context, it just sounds like, oh, he's highlighting his humanity there.
But actually it's kind of doing the opposite. Clearly he's a human being, nobody's questioning that. But when he says the son of man, he's using it almost like a title.
And he is saying something about who he is using this idea of one like a son of man in the
Old Testament, for example, in Daniel 7, where in the night visions, there's this one who looks like a human being, but somehow he has transcendent qualities.
He rides the clouds like a deity. His kingdom will be unstoppable and everybody will worship him. He's given all this glory and authority.
Who is this person? And Jesus uses that a lot. He uses it 81 times throughout the
Gospels and it's always on the lips of Jesus, except one time where the crowd is quoting Jesus, calling himself the son of man.
So you might want to look into that. That's one thing that he uses to reveal his identity. So things like that, where he calls himself the son of man, things that he does like forgiving sins and we'll dive into this in a moment when we look at the healing of the paralytic, but who does that?
We have no parallels of anybody doing that kind of thing. When he speaks, he has authority. I think we take that for granted because like we forgive each other's sins right now.
So that doesn't seem very godly. That's right, yeah. So what we don't see in Judaism is a kind of third party forgiveness.
Like I can ask you to forgive me for something I did to you, but I can't ask you to forgive me for something I did to my son.
It doesn't work like that. And you don't see that in the Greco -Roman world. You don't see that in the Jewish world.
Jewish. That's a really good point. Yeah, and so when the scribes heard it, they're thinking, okay, who can do that, right?
Only God can forgive sins in general. So we ask God to forgive us for our sins in general.
I mean, think about that. Like what if you sinned against somebody who died? How do you ask them for forgiveness? Like you can still ask
God for forgiveness, right? Even if you can't ask them. In fact, there's a fun little story about Nero, Nero did so many horrible, evil, wicked things.
One thing he did was actually had his mom killed and he felt so guilty about that, but he called in the magi to help him.
And even though they were kind of religious figures, he didn't ask them to forgive his sins. He asked them to perform a kind of seance so he could apologize to his mother's ghost.
And this is just Suetonius tells us this. And just an example of how you have to ask the person that you offended, right, to forgive you.
There's no such thing as third party. Only God can forgive sins like that. So those are some things to be looking for.
Jesus' titles that he uses with the things he does, the way he speaks with authority, and then where he's connecting himself to the
Old Testament, the way he reorients, say, the Passover meal to be all about himself.
Who has the authority to do that? Or the Sabbath, who has the authority to lay down how you're supposed to observe the
Sabbath? So these kinds of things are, I like how you call it, those winks that we should pay attention to. Okay, perfect.
Well, let's get into it. Okay, the first one is going to be Mark 2, verses 1 through 12.
And this is so exciting for me to do this during an episode because it's just so nice to just be in an episode where you read the word and then talk about it.
So I'm just gonna read those 12 lines, if you don't mind. Mark 2, 1 through 12. Okay, so I'm gonna read it and I'm gonna want some context.
So if you are in Mark 2, 1 through 12, it's gonna say, and this is the NIV. A few days later, when
Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come. They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them.
Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on.
When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, son, your sins are forgiven. Now, some teachers of the law were sitting there thinking to themselves, why does this fellow talk like this?
He's blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? Immediately, Jesus knew in his spirit that this is what they were thinking in their hearts and he said to them, why are you thinking these things?
Which is easier, to say to the paralyzed man, your sins are forgiven, or to say, get up, take your mat and walk? But I want you to know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins.
So he said to the man, I tell you, get up and take your mat and walk home. He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all.
This amazes everyone and they praise God saying, we have never seen anything like this. So many questions. I love that text.
It's such an amazing, amazing narrative. I love when Jesus does that too. He's like, which one's easier, telling him to walk or forgiving sins?
You know what? I'll do both. But let's just like paint a little bit of context.
Let's pretend like this is your first time hearing that verse. Like, where is he in the world?
Why is he preaching from? Like, how did this guy know? Like, could you just like kind of paint the picture of what's going on before this was even happening?
Sure. So they're in Capernaum. This is a fishing village by the Sea of Galilee. And it's a Jewish area.
Yeah, it is a Jewish area. It's not a Gentile area. And this is kind of his home base in the early part of the
Gospel of Mark. And in chapter two, where we are, he's already done some things. So the people kind of know who he is.
He healed a man with leprosy in chapter one. He has authority over demons. He exercised demons from people.
And he healed sick people like Peter's mother -in -law, who was really sick. And so there was a time now, people are actually following him, flocking to him.
He is preaching in this house. It's standing room only. The whole place is jam -packed, breaking the fire code. And there's nowhere to sit.
What is doing this? Are people like crazy guys with magic powers or they're like, I think he might be like the
Messiah. Like, do people like him? Do people trust him? Or like, what's the public view on Jesus at this point, this early?
Well, he's certainly a teacher. People are coming to hear him teach. And he certainly has performed so many miracles and healings that he couldn't even openly enter a town because all these people would crowd around him.
So people who wanted healing, people who wanted to learn from him. So for a variety of reasons, people were interested.
Even the scribes were interested. Who is this guy? Let's go check this out. And so he's teaching in this house.
And yeah, this whole thing about ripping out the thatched roof to drop your friend in. If that was my house,
I'd be pretty upset. Yeah. Just put that in. What is even going on here, yeah.
But that's me, you know? That's me who has attachment to like a home and a roof where it's like in this day and age, would that be common to say, well, learning is a prized possession and I'll do whatever it takes to get to this teacher who's teaching us things we never heard.
So I'm gonna do something that won't surprise many people because we'd all do it. Rip out the roof and lower my friend in, you know?
Like, do we have any context as to like, was that normal? You know, I have not found any parallel to this anywhere.
So this actually shows the desperation with which they were bringing their friend. Like, this is our last hope.
You know, if our friend can get healed, it's Jesus. We've heard about how he's done miracles.
Maybe they've seen him do miracles and it just shows just how desperate they were to get, if we can just get our friend to Jesus, he'll have a chance.
I mean, I would love to know that like, this was happening all over the place, but like, if there was somebody in my town that was healing the blind, you know, traffic, it would never end.
You know, everyone would be rushing to heal the blind. So there's a kind of desperation, but also a confidence.
Like, if we could just get close to Jesus, we know Jesus can heal. And so despite, it's an honor -shame culture too.
So, I mean, you're interrupting the rabbi teaching, you're interrupting the whole thing, but the shame was not enough to keep them away.
They're like, we're going to do this. We're going to do this. Oh, so you think they face like a little bit of ridicule by doing this?
Well, yeah, I don't think they were looked highly upon for tearing through that roof, right? This is not something
I've found another parallel to. Okay, okay. So would you say, or I mean, we're going to go over four different verses, but would you say this is one of the most important ones that we're going to look at today?
You know, it's a really good place for me to start. And for that reason, I think it's important because this is, one,
Jesus is known as a miracle worker for sure. Even people who don't believe that the Bible is God's word, even those people who don't believe miracles are even possible.
Scholars will say that Jesus was known as a miracle worker is a bedrock fact of history. He did things that people thought were miracles, at least, and he was known as a miracle worker for sure.
So I like to start with that as a common ground to talk about Jesus and show that he wasn't just a miracle worker.
He was actually known as a unique kind of miracle worker because what makes him unique and different from everybody else is that he claimed to forgive sins.
And you see that in this scene. So we start with the earliest miracle story in the earliest gospels we've written.
So it's pretty important that way. Yeah. Making a paralyzed man walk again wasn't as amazing as forgiving somebody's sins.
Is that what you just said? Or correct me if I'm wrong, because that is an insane sentence if that's what you just said. Well, what
I said was that this is the earliest miracle story in the earliest gospel to be written. And it actually is harder to say your sins are forgiven, but Jesus is giving them this riddle, right?
So they're not entirely sure what the answer is when he says, you know, which is easier to say to the paralytic, rise, pick up your bed and go home, or to say your sins are forgiven.
On the one hand, it seems like it's easier to just say your sins are forgiven because nobody can tell if that really worked. No, totally. Absolutely.
So why is that the hardest part of the sentence? That's the harder thing to say because only God can forgive sins.
And so if you say to the paralytic, get up and walk, that might seem like the harder thing because if he doesn't get up and walk, then you look like an idiot, right?
It's like, you're not a miracle worker at all. You're just a scam artist, right? But the scribes or the theologians in the audience, and they understood what
Jesus was saying. They said, so he's asking them, right, which is easier.
And they're still trying to think about this, right? And when they saw him, they heard him say, son, your sins are forgiven. They thought, why is this guy talking like that?
He's blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? And they're actually right that Jesus would be a blasphemer if he wasn't actually
God as he claimed to be, because only God can forgive sins. And so in their minds, what he's doing is a kind of a cultural form of blasphemy, which is making yourself too close to God, saying you can do the things that only
God can do. And so that's why they were thinking this in their hearts. Got it, got it.
So it actually makes more sense to say, I can heal this physiological ailment versus make a authoritative claim as myself as a divine being.
Yeah, because prophets could pray to God and heal, and then
God could heal the person if you prayed. But in fact, here, Jesus didn't even pray. He just told the man to get up.
He did a miracle without mentioning God or even praying. And so this is not at all like anything, like the people said, we've never seen anything like this, right?
Very different than just how prophets did it, or even no priest ever said anything like your sins are forgiven.
So this is pretty unique. It's what makes him a unique miracle worker. And is the wording here really important?
Because he's not saying God forgives you. He's not like announcing
God doing something, or he is personally doing the forgiving himself.
So that's like the key difference there. Yeah, some people will say, well, maybe
Jesus isn't really forgiving sins here. Maybe he's just informing the man that God forgave your sins.
Your sins are forgiven. And this passive construction, that's a grammatical term, this passive construction, is actually not the way to tell who's really doing the action here, because grammar is not gonna tell you that, the context is gonna tell you that.
And so Jesus was saying, son, your sins are forgiven, because remember how I said, he acts like God does and he speaks like God does?
Well, guess what? If you look in the Old Testament, God speaks like that too. God speaks in the passive where God says, his sins will be forgiven, their sins will not be forgiven.
And so Jesus is actually speaking the same way that God does in the Old Testament. But the thing is, he doesn't mention
God. He just forgives the man, seemingly out of his own authority and that's where the offense came with the scribes who are watching him.
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Take a breath, slow down and dwell in the good things. Now back to the show. So if I was in that room when that happened, what do you think the vibe would have been in that room?
Do you think it would have been like, this guy is insane. Like there is no, or is it, oh my gosh, maybe this guy is
God. You know, like what would have been, do you think, the public reaction? Because we understand like the scribes, like they think he's blaspheming.
But like what about the common folk? Like if I was sitting in there, would I have been caught up in the crowd of like, oh my gosh, this is
God. Or would it have been like, this is a demon possessed man. Well, demon possessed people fall down and thrash around on the ground, farthling at the mouth.
And you know, someone like Jesus has to come over and help them. He was people's authority, you know. Yeah, yeah.
Well, I think what people were reacting to was, as they said, we never saw anything like this.
So I think they were astonished. I think the parallel in Matthew says that they were so amazed that God would give such authority to a human being.
So they're like, how could this be? That a human being is, so they don't know the mechanism by which this works.
They're not saying, oh, it's out an eye maker of heaven and earth in front of me, right? They're not thinking that immediately, but they're thinking, okay, if he's not a blasphemer, who is he?
And also, if he was a blasphemer, why would God heal this guy and seemingly vindicate him? So he's from God somehow.
Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Also, just like a little thing that I wanted to note, and I added it to our notes here, is it kind of seems like God's reading their minds that they never outright say like, gosh, this guy's a blasphemy.
And God's like, did you say something? I'm going to respond to it. It's so funny, because it's like immediately
Jesus knew in his spirit that this is what they were thinking in their hearts and he said to them, like, I, it's just funny to me, you know, and I don't think that, like Jesus is funny or the
Bible is funny. I say this just like with joy of like, you know, to be Jesus is like, I know what you're thinking.
Like for them to think that and for Jesus to turn around to respond to them must have been so crazy. I'm just like, yeah, you know what?
That is what I think, Jesus. And I'll restate it. I do think you're blaspheming. And he said, no, it's easier. I'll do both.
It was such a boss move by him. Okay, moving on into the
Lord of the Sabbath. And I don't want to spend too much time here, but I just want to quickly kind of note this because in Mark, Mark 2, verses 23 to 28,
I'll read it real quick. Okay, so one Sabbath, Jesus was going through the grain fields.
And as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some of the heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the
Sabbath? He answered, have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need?
In the days of Abiathar and the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for the priest to eat.
And he also gave some to his companions. And then he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the
Sabbath. So the son of man is Lord, even of the Sabbath. What, why is that like a big deal that he's kind of telling them what's going on on the
Sabbath? I mean, it sounds like to me, if I'm just going to like kind of hear this from the pulpit is the
Pharisees are being legalists about the Sabbath, you know, who are you to break the Sabbath? And the
Lord saying, well, if you know Torah the way I know Torah, we both know that even David fed his people because they were hungry despite it being a
Sabbath. So are we not going to feed our people when they're hungry on the Sabbath? Am I missing anything there or what am
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Thank you so much. Now back to the show. Well, I think you're on the right track here. It's just that there actually was a variety of different ways that Jews thought they should keep the
Sabbath. And the question was, well, the Sabbath's holy for sure. What's the best way to actually keep that and honor
God? Now, Jesus is saying that he outranks this whole thing. He outranks one of the 10 commandments.
The Sabbath is not an ordinary Jewish tradition. It's something that God gave. It's one of the distinctives, like circumcision or dietary laws, temple worship.
It's part of their identity as Jews. And so to be Lord over something means you have authority over it.
So if he's Lord of the Sabbath, he has authority over the Sabbath. And that means you have authority over the sacred calendar that God gave, authority over the 10 commandments that God gave.
I think this points to a divine claim as well, because there's two theological realities behind the
Sabbath. One, creation, it's rooted in God resting, right? And then also redemption, that the
Exodus is honored through this rest as well. And it's so serious, that's why the
Essenes had their own way of keeping it, and they would write all about this minutiae about, you can't help an animal give birth on the
Sabbath, and you can't pick somebody up if they fell into a well. Then later on, the
Pharisaic tradition, you get in the Mishnah, there's 40 less one, they call it. 39 things you're not allowed to do on the
Sabbath. So obvious things, like don't go out and capture a deer. Don't sew and plow and reap and things like that.
But also they say things like, don't sew two stitches, or don't write two letters, or don't erase in order to write two letters.
So they got really into the minutiae of this. That's of course like 280, but the
Mishnah, those concerns were behind that in oral tradition, even around Jesus' time. So, but everyone believed the
Sabbath was sacred, and yet to honor it to be faithful to God. And so when Jesus says, I'm the
Lord of the Sabbath, the Son of Man, there's that title again, the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. He's saying that he is actually the one who can tell you the way to keep the
Sabbath. And who does that? God does that. Here's another claim that's pointing to his divine authority.
Got it, okay. Okay, why were the Pharisees like following Jesus and his gang around?
It seems like they were stalking them a bit. Um, well, they were interested in, I mean, they were interested in who he was because he was not only teaching, but he was doing miraculous healings.
And then you start saying things like, your sins are forgiven, and I'm the Lord over the Sabbath. They're kind of the theology police as well.
And so if he's saying things like that, he's developing a following. They're gonna get interested in one, seeing what he's all about.
And then two, eventually they're gonna conspire with the Herodians to get rid of him. But they're investigating because they need to check out, like, what is he teaching?
What's this guy teaching? Is he teaching things that are right, or is he leading the people astray? And in fact, later they're gonna say he's actually leading the people astray.
The Talmud calls him a sorcerer who leads people astray. And so they're in charge of seeing how the law is being lived out in daily life.
And so they're concerned about this. How come his claim of, you know, I'm gonna kind of feed my people when they're hungry, despite it being the
Sabbath, how come that wasn't just interpreted as, like, hey, this is the way
I'm gonna spend my Sabbath. You know, you do you, I'll do me. Why was it taken as, like, declaring authority as to how the
Sabbath should be spent for everybody? Well, because he's saying that it's lawful to do good on the Sabbath when he healed people, right?
And they had so many clashes on the things that he did on the Sabbath. Yeah. And so because he's acting as somebody with authority, other rabbis would quote other rabbis and say, well,
Rabbi Gamaliel says this, and Rabbi so -and -so says that. Jesus doesn't quote other rabbis. He just says, you know what?
It's lawful to do good on the Sabbath. What I'm doing here is actually a good thing. And, you know, if you had a son who fell in a hole, wouldn't you pick him up?
And remember when the Essene said, no, no, no, you shouldn't pick people up if they fall in wells. He's actually saying, no, this is the way to honor
God on the Sabbath, period. He's not appealing to any rabbis or anything else just out of his own authority.
And so this is why he's speaking very differently. He's speaking like God would speak, not just like a human teacher would speak.
Solid point. Okay, let's move forward and talk about the calming of the storm. Just real quick, it's
Mark 4, 35 to 41. Here we go, 35, here we go.
So that day when evening came, he said to his disciples, let us go over to the other side, leaving the crowd behind.
And they took him along just as he was in the boat. There were also other boats with him. Furious squall came up and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped.
Jesus was in the stern sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, teacher, don't you care if we drown?
He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, quiet, be still. Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
He said to the disciples, why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith? They were terrified and asked each other, who is this?
Even the wind and the waves obey him. I don't even know where to begin with that because it's so supernatural.
A Christian, he just controls the weather. And I think that's where it becomes very elusive, this
God that we believe in, but is the core center here, don't be afraid, or is the fact that God just controlled the weather and commanded elements?
Maybe you should be afraid. They're like, what on earth did we just see?
We totally just saw a man tell the wind and the waves to be quiet and it did it. It's not like we prayed all night for the storm to stop and then after six hours, it stopped.
Jesus was just like, be quiet, be still, instantly. And these were fishermen who professionally, they were out there, they knew about storms.
So when they're afraid, it's not like, oh, they're newbies and they've never seen this before. When they're, you know, if somebody who goes out professionally is afraid, you should probably be afraid too, right?
Yeah. But when they saw Jesus stop the storm, my gosh, they were scareder.
They got more afraid. It says Mark 4 41, they feared with a great fear. That is phobon megon.
It's like mega phobia. You know, it actually reminds me of Job, not
Job, Jonah. The sailors in Jonah also were afraid with a great fear, it says in the
Hebrew. They were afraid with a great fear. So this is one category of being in the
Hebrew scriptures with authority over the sea. There's only one category of that, and that's
God. Psalm 107 says, God is the one who has that power. So looking at like larger religious texts, is there ever any other count of other gods or other stories where a deity is able to command the waves in the way that Jesus just did in this passage?
Well, you might think about in the Roman, okay, so Mark was written for a Gentile audience. So the
Romans understood Neptune is the God of the seas. That's all his whole domain, right?
But this is something that a deity would do. So even for a Gentile, they would say, okay, normal people don't do that.
This is something that a God does. And so there is something very God -like about Jesus that's being communicated here, not only in the
Jewish mind because of Old Testament texts, like Psalm 107 that says, God is the one who commands the wind and the waves and stills them.
But also even Gentiles would attribute that to, that's a God thing. Normal human beings don't do that.
Only a God has the authority to control nature itself, yeah. Would they have clocked the
Psalm reference in this moment? You know, I'm not sure if that particular one came up, but there are many
Psalms that talk about this, that God is stilling the storm. Job also,
I think I mentioned Job earlier. I was thinking about this one, Job 38 says that God is speaking and then the waves are stilled, right?
So I don't know if there's a particular text that came to mind, but yeah, there's like four or five places in the
Psalms that talk about God is the one who has authority over nature generally, but specifically four or five times, the wind and the waves, yeah.
Up until this moment, where are we at with Jesus' miracles? Like he has healed leprosy, healed a paralyzed man, he's forgiven somebody, he's turned water into wine.
Is this kind of his first of the natural element miracles that he takes place in, that everyone's just kind of like putting these pieces, like these puzzle pieces together in their head of like, hold on, he's not just like a magician, he's like commanding everything.
Yeah, yeah, and in Mark, what we're in chapter four now, right? So he already has power over demons, exercising demons, over diseases, healing people, over the forces of nature now.
So it's not just in one area or this or that area, it's in all these different areas. And one of the greatest areas is control of the natural world.
Why? Because it's his own creation. Oh, I've never thought about it like that.
Yeah, it's - I would think that like commanding demons would be like the biggest one, because it's like supernatural, like unseen web stuff, but creation is, ah,
I've never thought about it that way. Okay. Yeah, you know, thinking about John, without him, nothing was made that has been made.
If he made it, he owns it, he rules it, he's showing you that he does. Is there like an allusion to the
Old Testament that maybe we miss when we stay in Mark and we see these revelations of Jesus? Like, is it hinting at,
I mean, you already mentioned Job and kind of, that's like, you know, God telling Job, like, you're just a human, you're not
God. But is this kind of the fulfillment of something we see in the Old Testament? Like with Moses, you know, parting the
Red Sea or anybody with like Abraham or any of the prophets that Jesus is like,
I am the embodiment of everything that you have known in the Torah. Well, I mean, in Matthew, there's this emphasis on the
Old Testament and Jesus being the new Moses in this kind of new Exodus, giving the teaching from a mountain.
And you see that, but I think there's particular Old Testament texts that come up with each given miracle.
For example, Psalm 103, verse three says, it is the Lord who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases.
And in the healing of the paralytic, what's he doing? He's acting like God does. He does both. He forgives all your sin and heals all your diseases.
He does both and in the same order. He prioritizes the man's spiritual need first by forgiving his sin, even though that's not why he came there.
And then he heals him to show that he does have authority on earth to forgive sins. And so I think there's particular texts that come up that you can start putting together, but it's really making people curious.
Who is this person? And even if there aren't a hundred percent sure who he is, there's people who are like, you know what?
I'm in, I'm gonna follow him. I'm not entirely sure what all is going on here, but I'm in, yeah.
Okay, that like perfectly sets up my next question is because like, as you know, Mark is a short book.
We know where we're inching along towards when it comes to Jesus. Like we know what going is to happen to him. And at what point is somebody looking at all these miracles by Jesus?
And when do, and maybe this is it, commanding the storm, that they stop looking at Jesus as, oh, this guy is empowered by God.
He like, God is the wind in his sails. Like God is just setting him up what he says goes versus now, oh my gosh,
I think this might be God. Is this the moment? Well, I think the moment that that really happened is the resurrection, because it is the resurrection that vindicates all of Jesus' claims.
Because you can say all this stuff, but as somebody said to me once, we went through all these texts.
Okay, fine, I'm willing to give you that not only literarily, but historically Jesus claimed to be God. But you know what?
Just because someone says they're God doesn't mean they are God. I'm like, that's totally fair. And it's the resurrection though, that made so many pious
Jews believe that Jesus is divine as he claimed to be, and that he's worthy of worship, so much so that they incorporated him into the identity of God and began to worship
Jesus with no compromise to Jewish monotheism. And so it's really not till the resurrection and ascension that people really understand.
His own disciples didn't even understand. Yeah, I think it's like the biggest shout of like, yeah, he conquered death. He did all these things while he's alive, and then he even conquered the thing that came after being alive.
And it's so different too, when you think about the prophets, like you mentioned Moses, Moses parts the sea. God says, stretch out your staff and do this, and then the prophet will obey, and then
God will do the miracle, right? Elijah can call down rain, but he prays first. Elijah can pray, and then
God can raise a little girl from the dead. What does Jesus do when he raised Jairus' daughter? He just said, Talitha kum. Little girl, get up, just like that.
And so the fact that he's not praying, he's not making reference to God. With the healing of the paralytic, he didn't pray, he didn't mention
God. There's no sacrifices, they're not at the temple. This is not how normally sin is forgiven, right, in the sacrificial system.
There's a way that human beings can be involved in that through the rituals in the temple on the day of atonement, but who can forgive apart from that?
God, only God can do it without these rituals and being in the temple, being a priest and all that.
So Jesus isn't claiming just to have the authority of a priest or the authority of a prophet, because he's not acting like prophets or priests.
He's acting like he can do the things that God can do. Okay, well, that brings us to our last text, which
I could say is like the climax of this conversation, because this is Mark 14, verses 61 through 64.
Let me find it. Okay, I should have probably highlighted these, but here we go. Okay, 61.
But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Again, the high priest asked him, Are you the Messiah, son of the blessed one?
I am, said Jesus. And you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of the mighty one and coming on the clouds of heaven.
The high priest tore his clothes. Why do we need any more witnesses? He asked. You have heard the blasphemy.
What do you think? They all condemned him as worthy of death. Okay, back it up.
This starts in the middle of a conversation. So this is after false testimonies.
People were like, oh, Jesus did this. And they're like, nah, well, we can't really clear that. That's obviously like a lie. Why did the
Sanhedrin then kind of step up and ask him specifically, okay, so we tried pinning you for these fake things.
Nobody can back it up. Messiah, are you that? Why did that be the question?
Is it because there was like rumors that that was what was going on? Well, I think they knew that many people thought he was the
Messiah. And what they're trying to do is this meeting is kind of like a grand jury investigation in the
American system where they're trying to dig up some political dirt on Jesus that they can take to Pilate and say, this guy deserves to die because they can't sentence anyone to death.
So they want something that they can take to Rome. And it's not going to be, well, he violated the Sabbath or he broke some temple laws because Pilate's not gonna care about that.
But if they say, you know what? This guy claims to be a king that Rome did not appoint. And so that's a challenge to the authority of Rome.
So you're gonna do something about that, right? So this Messiah thing.
Not only was he claiming that and not only did people believe it, but they were like, this is kind of the tippy top law that if you break this, you're out.
Well, if he claims to be the Messiah, they asked him this, because if he says yes, which people thought he was the Messiah, so they're pretty sure like people thought he was the
Messiah so what's he gonna say? He just asked him very directly, right? And he says, are you the
Christ, the son of the blessed? Jesus says, I am. He could have just stopped there and they would have said, that's exactly what
I needed to hear because you know what? The Messiah is the Davidic king. So there is a royal dimension to all this.
And if you are that long awaited Messiah who's going to take down Rome, they're looking for this one powerful
Messiah, John Wick figure who's gonna come in and just take everyone out. That's gonna be something that Rome is gonna care about.
Now we can take you to Rome and say, we're gonna seek the death penalty for this guy. But Jesus didn't leave it there.
He said, I am. And then he says, you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven.
That we could talk about for many, many, many more minutes. It just seems like he doubled down, but like, how does that make it worse, make it better?
What does that do to the conversation when he says that? Here's how this raises the stakes and actually increases the offense because are you the
Messiah? It's not blasphemy to say you're the Messiah, the anointed one who's going to restore the kingdom. That's not blasphemy?
Nope, because other people claim to be the Messiah and nobody charged them with blasphemy like Bar Kokhba was one. You're the anointed one.
You're claiming to be a Davidic king. I thought calling yourself God would be like, that's blasphemy. Yes, that's right.
But the Messiah, nobody knew that the Messiah was gonna be God. It's actually a surprise that not only did
God send the Messiah, but the Messiah is actually divine, that God actually entered human history that way.
No one expected that. So him saying he was the Messiah, they thought the
Messiah was gonna be just a guy, but Jesus saying, yes, I'm the Messiah, and yes,
I am the son of God. That is what made it crazy. I'm more than just a human
Messiah. This seated at the right hand of the power is an allusion to Daniel 7. You remember that son of man, one like a son of man who's riding the clouds like a deity and he receives all honor and authority and the whole planet is gonna worship him.
Who could make such a claim like that? And then he's connecting that to Psalm 110, where the
Davidic king, some descendant, is seated at the right hand of God, and that means he has divine authority to judge.
Jesus actually brings this up another time. How can David call him his Lord when he's his descendant? So somehow he's his superior, even though he's his son.
How'd that work? But what he's saying here is that one day, God is going to vindicate him, because this text was used to point to the ultimate eschatological king, the one who has divine authority to judge.
And so here's the vibe in this scene. This man is claiming to judge you, the high priest.
It's plural in the Greek, y 'all, and y 'all will see the son of man seated at the right hand of the power and coming with the clouds of heaven.
He's saying one day there's gonna be another trial like this except you won't be judging me at that one. And the ones who see are the ones who are judged.
There's a text outside the Bible called 1 Enoch in the similitudes written about the time of Jesus or a little bit before, where these kings and rulers and leaders, the ones who see the son of man are the ones who are judged on judgment day.
So I think they're thinking, wait, we are God's representatives on planet Earth, and you're gonna judge us? Who are you?
How dare you? And that's why he tore his robes and he said, this is blasphemy, because there's a category of blasphemy where you're saying that you can do the things that only
God can do. Who has the right to judge God's own representatives on planet Earth? Only God. So hence the offense.
In their world, if I was them, I would be looking at Jesus and saying, I judge you because God comes to me, and now
I come to you. And so it's up to me to hold you to the standard of holiness to be fit for God, but you're telling me that I don't meet his qualifications?
Is that what's going on in their heads? Yeah, ironically, this is like, they're calling him a blasphemer, but who's actually blaspheming
God here by calling Jesus a blasphemer? They're actually doing the very thing that they are accusing
Jesus of doing. But they would be right if he wasn't really God. To say that as a regular human being would be preposterous.
Like, one day, I'm gonna judge your sins. You know, there was actually a debate about could anyone sit with God in heaven?
Three scholars said yes, three said no. This is ancient Jewish scholars. And there was even an angel who was imagined as sitting down or trying to sit down at God's right hand.
His name, he sounds like a transformer. His name is Metatron. And Metatron styled himself a kind of Yahweh Junior, and he got smacked down right away for saying that.
But the point was, nobody can just roll into God's presence and have a seat like that. Maybe Adam or Moses or Enoch, for a limited time, if God invited them, yeah, maybe they could have a role in the judgment.
So this was something Moses, maybe people were contemplating this. But you know what? Even in their lifetimes, you don't see any evidence that Moses or Adam or Enoch went around telling people, one day,
I'm gonna judge your sins. One day, I'm gonna judge the sins of the whole world. No luminaries ever did that.
And so the audacity, they're thinking, and who are you? My gosh, this is really bad, man.
This is blasphemy. What are you saying? So the thing is, they were the theologians, and they were reading him.
They were hearing him loud and clear. It's just they didn't believe that he was actually divine. Okay, so just like you mentioned,
I love that word, but I cannot say it. Eschatological. Eschatological, I have to say it really fast.
Is that the coming down on clouds part? Yeah, this eschatological son of man is, this is being the deity who's coming on the clouds, and then, yes, those who see are the ones who are judged.
We're just talking about the end times when we say that. So this apocalyptic son of man coming on the clouds, it is judgment and deity imagery all together in one, yeah.
Got it, so that's Jesus saying, I know kind of like what revelation is.
I know how it's been alluded to in the Old Testament through Daniel and Enoch and other apocryphal texts, and I'm gonna be there.
That's kind of him saying that. That's him putting him on the same elevation as God as being, yeah,
I think I'm the Messiah, and these godly things that we all know are gonna happen because we've read them in the text, I'm also gonna be there because I know they're coming and I know about them and I'm a part of it.
I'm a crucial person that will be invited to that table, and so when the
Sanhedrin heard this, they were essentially saying, no, no, no, no, no, you are a poor carpenter boy.
You don't know anything, and so to them, this person might inspire, because I'm trying to put this in their perspective of how crazy it was that he did this.
They would have been like, you are literally spreading false information that's gonna give people hope. You don't know what you're saying right now.
Sit down. Yeah, and we are the judges here, and who are you? And they already believe that he's leading people astray.
They already believe that if people are hailing him as a king, remember, this is after the triumphal entry, so he's already come in.
People are shouting, Hosanna, save us, and if this messianic movement really picks up, this might cause some trouble for us with Rome, and so they need to take care of putting him away, but he's becoming a lot more explicit now.
You know, earlier, it was a little bit more vague in, who is this son of man? Oh, wait, he's a teacher.
Okay, wait, he's a prophet. Wait, he can forgive sins too, and he commands the waves? What on earth? And you know, you see more and more, he has authority over nature, over demons, disease, even death.
Now, if Jesus says he has authority on earth to forgive sins, and now he has authority in heaven to judge sins, he's seated at the right hand of God, that's authority in heaven and on earth.
That means he has authority over all of reality, and that's what we're seeing. Do you think there was a moment in that moment where they were like, maybe he's right?
Like, do you think they were doing the mental math of like, he did do the waves. They had the heleprosy, and the demons, and the forgiveness, and the eschatological.
Do you think they were like, oh, crap, you know? Or do they think like, that's literally not feasible, or is that possible?
There's no way, like, just in your own opinion. I mean, I don't know. Well, I think the high priest, for sure, thought he was a blasphemer.
He tore his robes, and then they all said he was worthy of death. Whether there was something in the background there that was like, oh, no.
You know, we know later that there were priests who joined the Jesus movement in Acts chapter six. And so, we know
Joseph of Arimathea was one of these leaders. Saul of Tarsus, eventually, right?
And so, I'm not sure if there was a little something there in the back of their minds, but certainly, they all condemned him as being worthy of death at this point.
Now, whether they thought about it a little bit more afterwards. Certainly after the resurrection, I think, some of them should have seen the writing on the wall there.
Ah, wow. Okay, so, as a listener, when someone says, well, did
Jesus really say that he was God? I feel like you did a really good job just kind of clarifying, like, he did without explicitly saying that.
Because when you walk like God, and talk like God, and command the wind like God, you basically are identifying yourself as God.
Yeah, so, Jesus claimed to be God through a combination of his words and his deeds. It's not just one thing that people are looking for, this exact quote,
I am God, as if that's the only way to do it. In fact, if anybody today just said, I am God, like, anyone could say that, and they would just probably put them away as a crazy person.
But that's why Jesus backed it up. He showed, not just with his words, but showed that he was
God, because he would actually do all these things that nobody else can do. To claim to bind Satan himself, and exercise a legion of demons, to tell the wind and the waves to be quiet, without praying or referring to God, forgiving and raising people from the dead, that's pretty amazing.
Not like any prophet, not like any priest. So, Jesus' words and deeds work together. That's how these implicit claims work.
And that's why we can say that those divine claims we see in John are not absent in Mark. We just have to know how to read it.
We have to understand how implicit claims work, and some of the Jewish backgrounds of that Old Testament background, to say, you know what, when we see
I and the Father are one, and they're picking up stones to stone him for blaspheming in John, that's coherent with what we see in Mark.
John's telling us the same thing that Mark is telling us, that Jesus is not only a human messiah, he's not just a human messiah, he's a divine messiah.
So, these are not just human claims, they're divine claims. And we only had time to really discuss four in Mark, but are there others in Mark that you wish we could have explored today?
Yeah, you can also talk about the way that he reoriented the
Passover to talk about himself. Who has the authority? This is supposed to be remembering
God's freeing the Hebrews from slavery. And then at the end, he actually says, this is my body, this is my blood, right?
And we remember that in the Lord's Supper today. But in the original context, he's reorienting this very, very important Jewish tradition that's an identity marker to be about himself.
Who has the right to do that? So, things like that. I can't think about Passover, Seder service without crying. That's always so touching for me.
Wow, you are so good at this. I know that you wrote a book. Please tell us about it so people can buy it.
Yeah, my book is called, Did Jesus Really Say He Was God? What's it about? I happen to have it here.
It's making sense of his historical claims. And so we look at it historically. So sometimes people have, when they say
Jesus never claimed to be God, or where does Jesus say he's God? Sometimes they have a literary question.
Like, I just don't know where in the Bible it says. Sounds like you can show them sometimes and they'll say, okay, maybe the
Bible says it, but I don't know if the Bible's really giving us real history. And so what we just talked about today,
I'm able to show in the book that even just using the tools of historiography, that we can show that Jesus claimed to have divine authority on earth to forgive sins and divine authority in heaven to judge sins.
And I actually work through other theories of what Jesus could mean by that, and then show that the theory that he claimed to have divine authority is the best one that explains the evidence.
So it's a historical look at the historical Jesus and his claim to be God. That's amazing. Where can people buy it?
They can buy it wherever they get their books, on amazon .com, or they can go to my website at apologeticsguy .com.
It's also audio, there's an audio book of it on Logos Bible Software as well. Great. Okay, I will include a link to that below.
If anybody wants to buy it right now, go ahead. But oh my gosh, this was a great conversation. And it just, the structure is so core to biblically speaking.
So like, thank you for helping me understand this part of my faith. I never had answers to that question. And I hope that it blesses somebody else who might be struggling with the apologetics here.
So just thank you so much for coming on the show and being so well -spoken. I feel like I spoke about a couple of things we didn't discuss and you're so smart.
So thank you. Well, thank you, Cassie. And I really appreciate having this time with you and being on your show.