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  Long Island Abundant Life Church 長島豐盛生命教會

John 10:22–42

6/4/2012

 
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....

[1] Gary M. Burge, NIV Application Commentary: John (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), 297.
Andrei
6/4/2012 08:05:42 pm

I'm still confused over Psalm 82: 5-7. Who is the one who is speaking in that Psalm? And who is the 'You' that this speaker is speaking to?

Thanks.

Greg
6/5/2012 04:25:30 am

Totally understand why you're still confused. The whole thing is rather confusing, and really centers around a translation issue that Jesus uses in His response.

Psalm 82 starts: "God presides over the great assembly; he gives judgment among the 'gods': how long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked?"

From the start, it's clear from the second half that he's not talking about "gods" of other nations. It would appear that he is talking about judges/rulers of Israel. That is exactly the case, but there is a translation issue that makes things confusing and difficult. The issue is this: the word here is "Elohim", which is the world that is used of God. There are some other interesting uses of "Elohim" however. Genesis 23:6 uses the term, but the best translation would probably be "mighty prince", not "god". Additionally, Exodus 22:8 has a usage of it that is translated in various ways. I think the correct translation would be "If the thief is found, the owner of the house shall appear before the judges..." (NASB, NIV, KJV). In this case the term "Elohim" has the meaning of "judge" or "someone in a place of high authority". ESV actually translates it as "God" in this verse, which I'm not sure I agree with.

Anyway, back to Psalm 82. With this understanding, the Psalm makes more sense. God sits above the assembly of Israel's judges and brings judgment on them for not doing what they should. With the understanding of who He's talking to, there is a great wordplay that goes on here. He says "You are (elohims - judges, but the same word as god), you are all sons of the most high. But you will die like mere men; you will fall like every other ruler." So there is a great wordplay going on in the Psalm relating to the wide range of meaning this word has. God is essentially saying "I don't care if the world that is used for your position is the same as a "god", remember that you are my sons and you will die like every other man. Don't set yourself against me."

Which brings us back again to Jesus in this passage. Jesus recalls this wordplay to respond to His accusers. He says: "You get mad at me for saying I am God, but look! This kind of language is used in the Psalms too! You're really problem isn't with the words I use about myself, but that you do not believe."

I hope that helps - it's a complicated issue that really revolves around translation and wordplay in another language, so if you have trouble understanding the translation stuff, let me know.

Andrei
6/5/2012 05:29:13 pm

Ohhh... yeah that cleared it up nicely. Thanks again.


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