This is something I wrote up responding to a friend who asked questions about if Jesus really claimed to be God in the Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. I was making it available to my Worldviews classes for an upcoming test, and it struck me it might be a good idea to make it public here, if you're into that sort of stuff.
It’s true to a large degree that much—if this term means anything—conservative Christian scholarship has neglected the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) on the issue of Christ’s deity. A number of Christians tend to sense more comfort with John’s Gospel. This may be due to the fact (1) it is written more simply and (2) Jesus’ claims to deity are extraordinarily explicit within John’s account.
I do think that last line is critical, though. Jesus claims to be God in the most direct, explicit terms in John’s Gospel. It’s easy and understandable to embrace the default mode that if Jesus’ claims of deity are strong in John and if such claims are not as explicit in the Synoptics, then the Synoptic authors are not clear about Jesus’ divine nature. Many evangelicals tense up at this and get awfully muddled in their replies…then again, such can be par for the course from much of the American evangelical landscape which tends to only take seriously what Scripture says when it makes them happy or comfortable. However, I would offer that direct statements or claims of divinity are not the only ways in which Christ might establish his divine nature. To assume that what is done in John must be done likewise in the Synoptics is understandable, but it begs the question. Clear or explicit claims are not the only ways in which one might establish one’s nature. Perhaps an analogy can help (and keep in mind, it’s an imperfect analogy; I’m willing to admit that).
Imagine one is taking a tour of a college. You might peek your head into a classroom where a discussion of the English Reformation is taking place. You see a collection of young adults around some tables with some primary documents and other books in front of them. There is another (slightly) older person moving around and asking questions, probing the comments made by the young adults and offering counter-suggestions. The older person is wearing a tweed jacket with an open-collared shirt, with jeans and hiking boots; other than the jacket, nothing would physically separate him from the others. Yet something does. He is asking questions, referring to parallel examples (“How does this compare to Luther’s approach? To Calvin’s approach? Why the emphasis on the authority of the king over the pope rather than the appeal to conscience like Luther at Worms?”), and he might affirm responses from the young adults, remind them of an upcoming test or paper, and even distributed selections from Cranmer’s 1552 edition of the Book of Common Prayer as assigned readings for the next time they meet.
What would we assume about our tweed-jacketed friend from the prior example? Most likely that he was the professor (or assistant prof, or adjunct prof, but you get the idea), right? But wait…he never said specifically he was a professor or teacher of any kind! He never said he had a Ph.D. or that he was on staff at the college. Why did we draw those conclusions? Could it have been due to the implicit nature of his actions that seem to make an indirect claim for his professorship?
I know that any analogy comparing to Jesus’ divine claim will not be an exact match, but I do think we’re on to something here (granted, as a Christian who believes in the divinity of Christ, I admit my bias). When we turn to the Synoptic Gospels, I think we get the same rub as our professor example. The Synoptics seem to express an implicit Christology (that is reaffirmed in the Creeds of Nicea and Chalcedon, cementing agreement with Christ’s divine nature) that comes from Jesus’ awareness of his deity and messiahship and (more to the point) his actions which demonstrate the functions and honor that belong to God alone. Christian statesmen such as W.G.T. Shedd and John Stott have already specified examples, but it doesn’t hurt to bring some out here for the sake of argument.
(A) Jesus judges humans beings in a way that can only leave us with the conclusion he is implicitly claiming divinity. For instance, he claims to know the thoughts (Matthew 9:4, 12:25) and hypocritical insinuations (Matthew 22:18) of people. He claims he will sit in judgment over people at the Last Judgment (Matthew 7:22-23, 16:27, 25:34-41) and authorize his angels in this judgement (Matthew 25:31-46).
(B) Jesus forgives sins. I know this doesn’t seem like a claim to divinity at first. After all, if Luka Modric bumps Gareth Bale in the Wales-Croatia game presently airing on ESPN and then calls him a “retarded Welsh bastard”, I think we’d agree that would be wrong. Now Bale could tell Modric he was forgiven, and truly, Bale has that right. He has that right, though, because Bale was the one offended by Modric’s slur. If Daniel James left his position to go over to Modric and say, “I forgive you for what you said to Gareth”, that’d be both bizarre and out of place (and as a Wales fan, I’d wonder why James was so out of position!). Modric’s offense was not against Daniel James. But when Jesus forgives the sins of others, he is hitting this at a deeper level than our human-to-human expressions of forgiveness. He publicly forgave the sins of individuals on two occasions in the Synoptics. There is the occasion of the paralytic lowered through the roof in both Mark 2:1-12 and Luke 5:17-26 where Jesus tells the paralytic “Your sins are forgiven”. To give a blanket pardon of this sort logically implies either of two things: (1) Jesus is psychotically out of his tree or (2) Jesus is claiming to be the one who is ultimately offended in all sins, which is God. The same expression is used in Luke 7:36-50 where Jesus forgives the sins of the prostitute who anoints his feet with ointment. Most likely, Jesus had never met either the paralytic or the prostitute before. Why would he offer forgiveness? Because somehow, they had sinned against him. And if only God is offended by every sin, Jesus is making an implicit claim to be God. The reaction of the Pharisees to varied times when Jesus forgave sins (Matthew 9:3, Luke 5:21) is outrage for what they view as blasphemy, so they knew what Jesus indirectly claimed through his actions.
(C) Jesus grants eternal life. While this is most explicitly tied to Jesus’ deity in John gospel, Jesus does offer eternal life in the conversation with the rich young ruler (Matthew 19:16-31; Mark 10:17-21; Luke 18:18-22) if he would sell everything and follow him as evidence of a life transformed by God’s grace. We may ask, “Isn’t that what ministers, priests, and missionaries might do?” In a way…but ordinary Christians can only point to the eternal life God grants to humanity. Only God can grant that regenerated life.
(D) Jesus claims his presence is God’s presence. Jesus makes a bold claim in Matthew 12:6 when he says “One greater than the Temple is here.” The Jerusalem Temple was viewed as the dwelling place of God, so what could be greater than the Temple than the One who dwelt there? Jesus’ claim to omnipresence comes through in Matthew 28:20 when he says that wherever the disciples go to make disciples (which was a lot of different places), he is with them always.
(E) Jesus claims that one’s response to him will determine one’s eternal destiny. Eternal life is a gift to those who trust Jesus and profess him with their changed hearts and lives (Matthew 7:21-27, 10:32-33). He also makes some incredibly demanding calls upon the lives of people to love him more than anything or anyone; he says the one unwilling to forfeit one’s life for Christ will have no place with him eternally (Matthew 10:37-39, 16:24-26; Mark 8:34-38; Luke 9:57-62, 14:26-27). Jesus is telling people that he demands the place of supreme affection in one’s life; biblically, the only one who can legitimately demand that is God. Either Jesus has blown all his circuits of reason, or this is an implicit, indirect, yet sober claim to be God.
(F) Jesus parallels actions toward him with actions toward God. Yes, this is clearest in John’s Gospel, but we do get claims like this in the Synoptics. In Matthew 10:40, when Jesus sends out the disciples, he says “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.” Mark 9:37 notes Jesus saying, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but the one who sent me.”
(G) Jesus taught the truth one his own authority. Some people have considered Jesus a prophet, and there is no doubt—from a Christian vantage point—he is fulfilling that role as the one greater than Moses (Deuteronomy 18:18). But the Old Testament prophets were careful to affirm that their message was God’s, not their own (Jeremiah and Amos being explicit examples). They would use phrases like “This is what the Lord says”, “The word of the LORD came to me”, or “I heard the Lord’s voice.” They drew a separation between their person and God in a way which preserved God’s divine authority and inserted none of their own in the origin of the message they proclaimed. Jesus, however, seems to know that his teaching had ultimate importance: It grants true wisdom (Mt. 7:24), it never fails (Mt. 24:35), and it must be taught to all nations (Mt. 28:18-19). And Jesus doesn’t prelude his teaching with “This is what the Lord said to me”, but rather “Truly I say to you.” This expression is used a total of 74 times in the Gospels. Twenty-five occurrences are in John, but in addition to Luke’s six and Mark’s thirteen, Matthew uses it thirty times (perhaps to underscore Jesus’ divinity to his primarily Jewish audience?). While the Old Testament prophets go to great lengths to deny their personal authority in the origin of their message, Jesus is emphasizing his words are true because he says them. And the only one, in a biblical frame of reference, who would say nothing but truth all the time is God himself.
(H) Jesus performed miracles on his own authority. Yes, others in the Bible performed miracles. Exodus records Moses did that neat snake thingy before Pharaoh. Acts 3 shows Peter and John healing a lame beggar. And these are two mere examples. But whenever the issue of who gets the credit for the miracle comes up, those in the Old Testament and Acts give explicit and direct props to God. Through the Synoptics, when Jesus heals, he doesn’t give credit to the Father. Neither does he explain his miracles. We are left with the implication that he is healing via his own power and that he can override nature when he desires to do so…Many times Jesus affirms that the miracle occurs because he wills it. The leper in Matthew 8:2-3, the centurion in Matthew 8:5-13, and the blind men in Matthew 20:29-34 all receive this assurance.
(I) Jesus receives worship, reverence, praise, and other reactions that are only appropriate for God alone. Many people fall down or bow down to Jesus and he does not dissuade them (Mark 5:27, 33; Luke 5:8). This is in marked contrast to others in Scripture, like Peter, who humbly tells Cornelius he’s just a man like him and to get up from a kneeling position (Acts 10:26), or the disastrous pride of Herod (Acts 12:22-23). To be sure, not every bowing is an act of worship; demons fall before Christ, and they sure ain’t worshiping him (Lark 3:11; Luke 8:28). However, there is no doubt Jesus did allow others to fall at his feet while they praised God for his mighty acts. The leper in Luke 17:15-19 comes to mind. The main point is that if Jesus were not God, then he should be telling people to get up, not bow before him. For him to receive these expressions without batting an eye means—to paraphrase C.S. Lewis once again, he is either a madman or he is who he claims to be.
(J) Jesus takes texts from the Old Testament that describe God and applies them to himself. In Matthew 21:15-16, when the Jewish leaders complain that the children of Jerusalem welcomed Jesus in the triumphal entry with cries of “Hosanna to the Son of David”, Jesus quotes Psalm 8:2 in reply: “From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise.” As Psalm 8 is addressed “O LORD, our Lord”, Jesus is applying an Old Testament passage about God to himself. When Jesus claims that heaven and earth will pass away, but his words will never do so, he is claiming his words have the exact same permanence and durability as God’s (Matthew 24:35; Mark 13:13; Luke 21:33, compare with Isaiah 40:8).
(K) One last item about Jesus’ titles. I know full well that followers of God are at times called sons of God (many verses in Paul’s epistles echo this), but Jesus receives the title “Son of God” without flinching in several places in Matthew and Luke. One can argue the title itself is an implied claim to deity (for more, read Peter Kreeft’s Between Heaven and Hell). After all, if a human father has offspring, it will be human, of course, not salamander nor rabbit nor giraffe. Only a wolf father can beget a wolf son. Only a sun bear father can beget a sun bear son. This is because a son will bear the nature of his father. And the Son of God would bear the…well, the title itself seems to imply deity.
I hope this didn’t get too long and winding. And I hope there’s clarity in the midst of it. I wanted to give a fair shake to the question of the Synoptics. It's correct that they don’t make the blinding-light-specificity-by-comparison that John’s Gospel does. I think it can be natural to expect they might do so the same way, and I can’t explain why (except for audience or stylistic reasons) why they didn’t, but I don’t want to press too many of my expectations for how a story should go upon another author who would have their own reasons for the presentation of their account. I think what is true is that even if the Synoptics’ evidence of Jesus’ claims of deity aren’t as explicit as John’s, there are many places where Jesus’s claims are implied and done in skillful if indirect fashion. Maybe it’s helpful to think of it like the difference between a reporter and a novelist. The reporter must “tell” what is and thus must be more explicit; the novelist has latitude to “show” and so can use a variety of methods like dialogue, description, foreshadowing, and inference to make his or her point. Accounts can press the same truths upon us in varied fashions.
