Jesus’ claim that God was his Father was misunderstood by the Jewish leaders, especially inasmuch as they inferred that he was claiming equality with God. Jesus went on later to finally address this misapprehension in John 10:30–33 pointing out that if they were hearing his claim to oneness with God to mean equality with God, they were sorely mistaken. He went so far as to address the misunderstanding taking it as far as it would go: He was willing to address their misconception that he was claiming to be equal to Almighty God. He argues, in fact, that were he even to claim to be theos (“god”), the designation would be no more inappropriate than the leaders of Israel being called theoi (“gods”), as in Ps 82:6 when God himself calls the judges of Israel “gods”—men who could even be called sons of God.45 And as we will see infra, while the Jewish leaders did attempt to try Jesus for claiming Messianic authority once they had him in their kangaroo court, they never again brought up the claim that he was equal with God after this, Jesus’ clear explanation and exegesis.
The Jewish Charge of Blasphemy
Irons seems to be incredulous that Jesus’ admission that he was the Son of God was an equivalent designation for Messiah for he believes claiming to be Messiah would not have caused the Jewish leaders to elicit the charge of blasphemy. He points out several passages of Scripture where a perceived claim to being equal with God was deemed to be a claim to equality with God deserving of death:
a. John 5:18—Note that the verse claims that Jesus was continually “breaking the Sabbath.” Jesus claimed that in healing the lame man at the Bethesda Pool, he was joining his Father in his continuing work. Some would see this as claiming a special exemption from keeping the Sabbath. But Jesus had already indicated that if it were good to act mercifully on behalf of an animal in misfortune on the Sabbath, then surely it was good to do the same for people. Thus it was “lawful to do good on the Sabbath” (Matt 12:12). The Jews had misunderstood God’s will regarding the Sabbath. By implication they were also wrong in assigning to him a claim to be equal with God.
b. John 8:58—I was puzzled at Irons’s mention of this verse. He lists it as evidence that Jesus was blaspheming. He does not, however, identify the blasphemy; he only quotes that Jesus claimed to be “[before] Abraham,” and gives the report that “they picked up stones to throw at him.” Perhaps Irons is leaving open the possibility of understanding egō eimi in the passage as meaning “I have been.” The translators of the NASB (1971) list as legitimate the alternate reading, “before Abraham came into being I have been.” This is very much like the Greek reading from the beginning of the testament of Job, which I mention in my opening presentation. The Greek here is remarkably essentially similar to the pseudepigraphal T. Job 2:1: “For I have been Jobab [Egō gar eimi Iōbab] before the Lord named me Job [prin ē onomasai me ho Kyrios Iōb].” That this text would say that Jesus preexisted Abraham does not, however, suggest that Jesus was equal to God. The created angels preexisted Abraham, and are even called “sons of God” (Job 1:6; 2:1; 1 Kgs 22:19–22; Ps 148:2, 5).
c. John 10:30–36—Here, I am keying in on Irons’s emphasis on verse 36 where Jesus asks his accusers if they are stoning him because he said he was God’s Son. Andreas Köstenberger has suggested that Jesus is using a qal wahomer rabbinic argument made from the lesser to the greater. Köstenberger writes: “Jesus’ point is that if Israel can in some sense be called ‘god’ in the Scriptures, how much more appropriate this designation is for him, ‘whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world’ and who truly is the Son of God.”46 Perhaps that is Irons’s point. But it isn’t a definite point. He is not arguing what the Son of God is.
d. John 19:7—The Jewish leaders argue that Jesus ought to die because he claimed to be the Son of God. Were they offended because it was Jesus who was making this claim? Was it because the claim was made at all? Or was it that the claim was that the association was being made with being God’s Son? And why was one of these (or something else) a problem? Irons doesn’t tell us.
e. Matt 9:3—Irons points out that blasphemy was assigned to Jesus because he claimed to do something that only God could do—forgive sins. But he fails to point out in the argument here that Matt 9:8 demonstrates, first, that the people marveled because such authority had been given. Irons has already admitted that Jesus was both human and divine while on the earth. While his alleged divine identity would have been masked from the people, the Father would not have been confused that the one who shared in his nature and identity—his co-God if you will—was in fact embodied as Jesus. As God there was nothing that the God part of Jesus lacked, so authority to forgive sins would have been something that Jesus already possessed. It also shows, second, that the power to forgive sins had been given to men—and here the man under consideration was Jesus. Is Matthew writing of the people’s perception or his own spiritually informed perspective about Jesus as a man and only as a man?
Jesus as the Revealer or Image of the Father
At this point I feel compelled to say that none of the observations that Irons makes negates an understanding of Jesus’ status as Son of God as Messiah. If Jesus had a heavenly preexistence, he would have knowledge of the Father that he could indeed uniquely communicate to others. Revelation is indeterminate regarding the period of time or the nature of the Son’s existence with the Father in heaven before his advent. So I am not one who thinks of Jesus as a “mere creature.” Certainly I share with Irons an understanding that there are humanly unknowable details about the relationship of the Father and the Son before he became the man Jesus. I implied as much in my first paragraph of this presentation. Yet Irons quotes John 14:9–10 without comment on what Jesus means when he tells Philip that to see him is to see the Father. We cannot even get an idea of what he means when, in the next sentence, he quotes Jesus who says, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). Jesus says in the same book that his disciples are to be “one” as he and the Father are one; and he adds that they in him and he in them share the same oneness (John 17:21–23).
The best picture of being “one” that is understandable (since Irons offers no commentary) is that Jesus is talking about unity of the believing community as they seek to have a better understanding of God’s nature and heart. Certainly Jesus is spoken of in exalted terms. In saying Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15), however, is to admit that he is not the same as God. Jesus in an eikōn, a “likeness, image, or portrait,” of another. It is decidedly not the real thing. Even to describe Jesus as the charaktēr of God (Heb 1:3) is to present Jesus not as the real God, but as a stamp or an engraved likeness impressed into a piece of metal like Washington on a quarter or Jefferson on a nickel.
This is not to detract from what Jesus is, but it is to guard against saying what he is not—God himself. Jesus can communicate God, represent God, reveal God, imitate God, provide the highest pixel resolution of God possible on one’s computer or mobile device, but he is not God himself. Irons will, as we shall see, join Bauckham and use other terminology, but it means the same thing (or something polytheistically worse for Trinitarians if God and one who shares in his identity is another entity!). Irons cites Col 2:9 which states that the fullness of deity lives in Jesus in bodily form. Could anything be greater? Yet is it not true that Paul prays that each believer in Ephesus be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God also (Eph 3:19)? Does not Peter assure his readers that it is possible for them to participate in the divine nature (share in God’s identity?) and escape the world’s corruption caused by evil desires (2 Pet 1:4)?
Irons believes that all of this inheres in Jesus’ identity as God’s Son, but not because the Son is the Messiah, but rather because the Son comes from God. This is because he does not see that the penultimate revelation of God announced on the day of Pentecost is very great indeed: Jesus was formally proclaimed Lord and Messiah at that time. The Dan 7:13–14 prophecy that the Messiah (a Son of Man) would enter into God’s presence and receive authority, glory, and sovereign power, and that he would be worthy of universal worship, reigning over an eternal kingdom, was fulfilled. Irons indicates further in his essay an appreciation for certain aspects of this paragraph, particularly regarding Ps 110:1 and