Click here to read today's passage on Bible Gateway.
God and gods
Another intense passage today. We have another claim to be God ("I and the Father are one") and another attempt to stone Jesus for that statement. I want to spend a minute on part of the passage that I found confusing:
"Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken— do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? (vv. 34-36. emphasis mine)
Here's what Burge has to say:
"Jesus’ defense in 10:34–39 is carefully nuanced and takes advantage of the symbolic motifs present at the Hanukkah Festival. He defends himself by citing Psalm 82:6. This psalm was well known and provided a critique of Israel’s failure to respond to God (82:5–7):
“They know nothing, they understand nothing.
They walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
“I said, ‘You are “gods”;
you are all sons of the Most High.’
But you will die like mere men;
you will fall like every other ruler.”
The relevance of the passage is striking. The absence of knowledge and understanding is a fitting description of Jesus’ audience. They do not know the shepherd’s voice. But the single point Jesus is making centers on Psalm 82:6. Rabbinic interpretation argued that this psalm was addressed to Israel’s tribes as they received the law at Mount Sinai. It recalled Exodus 4:22–23, “Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, ‘Let my son go, so he may worship me.’ ” If the word “god” can be applied to those other than God himself in the Scriptures—if someone can be called a “son of God” here in God’s unbreakable word—why are Jesus’ words blasphemy? In John 10:36 Jesus calls himself “God’s Son,” and this is surely an echo of this historic context." [1]
Definitely still a difficult issue, but Jesus is basically calling them out for wanting to stone Him for saying He is God's son. He pulls this (somewhat random) usage from the Psalms to show that such language is not always blasphemy. Jesus gets them on this minor point, going on to explain that even beyond the use of that word, His miracles prove who He is. They are wrong to think that they should stone Him. In the way only Jesus can, at the same time He calls them out for their unbelief and inability to hear and understand Him. Trying to picture it in my head, I think it would be INCREDIBLY frustrating to be these religious leaders. They always think they have Jesus trapped by a question or accusation, but Jesus always pulls something from the Bible to shut them up. Then, on top of that, He almost always accuses them afterwards! It's really no wonder that they saw Him as dangerous. But what if for one moment they entertained the fact that what He said about Himself was true? Jesus spoke words of life and truth to them, but they saw them only as words of death and lies. May we not be blind as they were....
God and gods
Another intense passage today. We have another claim to be God ("I and the Father are one") and another attempt to stone Jesus for that statement. I want to spend a minute on part of the passage that I found confusing:
"Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken— do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? (vv. 34-36. emphasis mine)
Here's what Burge has to say:
"Jesus’ defense in 10:34–39 is carefully nuanced and takes advantage of the symbolic motifs present at the Hanukkah Festival. He defends himself by citing Psalm 82:6. This psalm was well known and provided a critique of Israel’s failure to respond to God (82:5–7):
“They know nothing, they understand nothing.
They walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
“I said, ‘You are “gods”;
you are all sons of the Most High.’
But you will die like mere men;
you will fall like every other ruler.”
The relevance of the passage is striking. The absence of knowledge and understanding is a fitting description of Jesus’ audience. They do not know the shepherd’s voice. But the single point Jesus is making centers on Psalm 82:6. Rabbinic interpretation argued that this psalm was addressed to Israel’s tribes as they received the law at Mount Sinai. It recalled Exodus 4:22–23, “Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, ‘Let my son go, so he may worship me.’ ” If the word “god” can be applied to those other than God himself in the Scriptures—if someone can be called a “son of God” here in God’s unbreakable word—why are Jesus’ words blasphemy? In John 10:36 Jesus calls himself “God’s Son,” and this is surely an echo of this historic context." [1]
Definitely still a difficult issue, but Jesus is basically calling them out for wanting to stone Him for saying He is God's son. He pulls this (somewhat random) usage from the Psalms to show that such language is not always blasphemy. Jesus gets them on this minor point, going on to explain that even beyond the use of that word, His miracles prove who He is. They are wrong to think that they should stone Him. In the way only Jesus can, at the same time He calls them out for their unbelief and inability to hear and understand Him. Trying to picture it in my head, I think it would be INCREDIBLY frustrating to be these religious leaders. They always think they have Jesus trapped by a question or accusation, but Jesus always pulls something from the Bible to shut them up. Then, on top of that, He almost always accuses them afterwards! It's really no wonder that they saw Him as dangerous. But what if for one moment they entertained the fact that what He said about Himself was true? Jesus spoke words of life and truth to them, but they saw them only as words of death and lies. May we not be blind as they were....
[1] Gary M. Burge, NIV Application Commentary: John (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), 297.
RSS Feed
