The
Jews are accusing Jesus of blasphemy which carries the sentence of death. Jesus
responds to their accusation, “Is it
written in your Law, ‘I have called you gods; if He called you gods to whom the
work of God came –and the scriptures cannot be broken—what about the One whom
the Father set apart as His very own and sent into the world? Why then do you
accuse Me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son.’”
Again, Jesus is using the Older Testament scriptures to
teach His accusers. Jesus quoted Psalm
82:6. By saying “the scriptures
cannot be broken,” Jesus is affirming the binding authority of scripture.
Jesus didn’t come to break the scriptures but to fulfill them so He could ring
in grace and truth through Him. Jesus had to obey all of God’s Law perfectly
and completely to fulfill it and set us free to now walk with Jesus willingly
through His love, grace and truth. He had to come to earth through the Jews
because God gave the Law/Word of God to them. So, the Law could only be
fulfilled by a Jew who obeyed it perfectly and completely by doing all that the
Law required of the Jews.And, the scriptures had to be fulfilled by a holy Man because the holy Man/Adam along with the Eve were the first to sin against God.
Psalm 82 was
God’s Word through Asaph who was chief of the singers appointed by David, and a
poet and prophet. God is speaking through His prophet Asaph in a song/psalm to rebuke
the judges of Israel who were the religious leaders and were the moral,
spiritual and political authority of the Jews. They judged life and death
matters! God wanted these judges to judge righteously according to His Word.
Instead these judges were “defending the
unjust and showing partiality to the wicked.” V2 Jesus is using this particular psalm to
speak to the Jewish religious leaders who are also responsible for judging
righteously according to the Word of God. Instead, they are judging unjustly by
accusing Jesus of blasphemy.
Jesus is the
Word of God (voice of God) who
existed with the Father and the Holy Spirit before anything was created and
through whom all things were created. Without God, the Word of God (Jesus) and the Spirit of God (Holy Spirit), nothing could have been
created. And without them, nothing can be recreated! They are One in character,
purpose and power. Jesus, whom God appointed as Judge of the whole earth,
judges righteously. As the Truth, Jesus also only speaks the Truth.
Psalm 82:6: “I said, ‘You are gods,”
you are all sons of the Most High.” The Hebrew word for “gods” is elohim. Strong’s H430 says elohim Is used for the true God but also for judges, angels, God-like ones, works and special possessions of God, mighty
or godly. The word “gods” didn’t
always imply deity. Being called gods does not mean that they are divine. They
were called “gods” because they had been given authority and power to rule over
God’s people. God wanted them to rule justly. They were not living up to their
God-given task. The religious leaders to whom Jesus is addressing understood
this. As the judges in Psalm 82 had
become arrogant and unjust, so too had the Jewish religious leaders who wanted
to stone Jesus to death. They were blind leaders of the blind Notice Jesus said, “I have said” in this Older Testament scripture. It was Jesus who
said it because He is and will always be the `Word of God – the voice of God. When God spoke, it was
Jesus. It was God’s Word (Jesus) that
brought all things into being in the beginning of Genesis. The Gospel of John
begins with “In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the
beginning. Through Him (Word/Jesus)
all things were made; without Him
nothing was made that has been made.” John 1:1-3 The rulers of Israel and
the Israelites were the carriers of the Word of God, but Jesus is far greater.
He is the Word Incarnate – the very Word of God brought to life in the flesh
and then restored to His original place with the Father in heaven. He is the
Living Word of God from beginning through all eternity and therefore the only
One who can fulfill scripture and speak pure Truth.
Humans can be
so-called “gods (elohim)”in the sense that we are messengers of God and hopefully
reflect His ways to others through our own actions, words and deeds. When we
walk in obedience to God and His Word, we are godlike. We are nothing except His instruments for His
purpose when we walk according to His Word and ways. All else in us is
worthless – full of sin and filth. The first Man/Adam was originally made in
the image and likeness of the Godhead – holy and without sin. Adam and the
woman didn’t know evil until they disobeyed God’s Word and ate of the forbidden
fruit. God had to send Jesus who is fully God and fully Man to reverse the
curse of the first holy Man’s sin. When the first sin occurred, God said in Genesis 3:22, “Behold, the man has become
like us, to know good and evil. All the original Man and Woman knew prior
to their sin was the good. Now, like the Godhead, they know both. Evil existed
long before Man was created. We are all fallen like Adam and Eve. The Godhead
wants to restore us back to our original condition – holy. To be born again, we
must be born spiritually by the Father’s will, the Word of God (Jesus) and the power of the Holy
Spirit. We don’t have the power or ability on our own to be recreated and
restored to holiness. In His eternal love, God sent Jesus and the Holy Spirit
to give us the truth and the power to become new creations. You could say we
are all in the process of becoming godlike. When we have Jesus (Word) and the Holy Spirit, Divine
potential dwells in each of us. We are mighty only in Jesus – the Mighty One of
God.
One Whom the Father Has
Set Apart and Sent
Jesus
is God’s ultimate Set Apart and Sent One of God. He is one of kind. He is holy
and God even while in the flesh. Israel was God’s messenger nation until Jesus.
God even called Israel His firstborn son in Exodus 4:22. The firstborn son is the eldest who will build up the
family name.Israel was chosen by God to build the spiritual family of God. God gave His Word to Israel in part until the perfect
and complete Word of God came in Jesus. God’s chosen ones – both the Israelites
and those who believe in and follow Christ – are mortal, but Jesus is immortal.
He died in the flesh but His spiritual being never died. The Eternal Life-giver
took on the flesh of humans for us to die in our stead so through Him we could live eternally. Jesus had committed no sin and therefore was not
worthy of death for sin and yet He came to do this for us so that we could
receive His resurrected life. If not for Jesus, there would be no hope for us.
There was no one in Israel or any human who could do this because we have “all sinned and fallen short of the glory
of God.” All –even judges – will
stand before Jesus, the Judge of all the earth.
Jesus said to
His accusers, “Why then do you accuse Me
of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son?” God called all Israel His
firstborn son and in Psalm 82 called those who believed in God the sons of the Most High God, so why would the Jewish religious leaders accuse Jesus of
blasphemy for saying He is God’s Son. Jesus, the Son of God’s glory, will bring
sons and daughters to glory!
While in the
flesh, Jesus bowed to His Heavenly Father’s authority, but the Jewish religious
leaders did not. When Jesus said, “I and
the Father are One,” He was making a statement that no one else could make. Jesus goes on to say, “Do not believe Me unless I do what my Father does. But if I do it,
even though you do not believe Me, believe the miracles, that you may know and
understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” John 10:37-38 Jesus and the Father are united as One. No
sin has touched them.The miracles that God did attested to His deity.
Again they tried to seize Him, but He
escaped their grasp.
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