Book 6 of 8 – How a Prophet Became God
Jesus called himself Son of Man – the explicit human designation from Ezekiel. He said no one is good except God and declined a compliment of goodness. He called himself a prophet. He prayed to the Father, his God. The doctrine of his divinity was voted on at Nicaea in 325 AD – three centuries after his death, by a council he never convened, using a word that doesn’t appear in the Bible.
1. What He Called Himself
The Argument
Jesus’s most consistent self-designation is “Son of Man” – a term drawn from the prophetic tradition of Ezekiel (used ~93 times) and Daniel (7:13). In both contexts, “Son of Man” is explicitly a human designation. Ezekiel is addressed as “son of man” precisely to emphasize his humanity before the divine. Jesus uses this term for himself more than any other. If he intended to claim divinity, this was the least effective way to do it.
Key Scriptures
What Christians Claim
Jesus used “Son of Man” in a messianic sense derived from Daniel 7, which depicts a heavenly figure of enormous authority.
The Response
Daniel 7:13 depicts a figure who comes to the Ancient of Days – he is brought before God, not identical with God. The Son of Man receives authority; he does not possess it inherently. This is the language of delegation, not divinity.
2. What God Called Him
The Argument
At Jesus’s baptism and transfiguration, God speaks from heaven: “This is my beloved Son” (Matthew 3:17; Matthew 17:5). God does not say “this is me.” He says “this is my Son” – a relational designation that implies distinction. A son is not identical to his father. The voice from heaven, treated as the clearest moment of divine communication about Jesus, speaks of relationship, not identity.
Key Scriptures
What Christians Claim
“Son” in the divine context means something different than in human relationships – it indicates the second person of the Trinity.
The Response
“It means something different” is precisely the argument being challenged. The texts say what they say. The Trinitarian interpretation was formalized at Nicaea in 325 AD – three centuries after the events. It is an interpretive framework imposed on texts that do not use it.
3. I Am Not Good
The Argument
Mark 10:17 – 18: A man calls Jesus “Good Teacher.” Jesus responds: “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” Jesus explicitly distinguishes himself from God on the basis of goodness – God is good; Jesus is not (by this framing). This is not a casual remark. It is a direct response to a direct compliment. Jesus denies the attribute most associated with divinity.
Key Scriptures
What Christians Claim
Jesus was testing the man – asking him to think through what it means to call him good, implicitly pointing to his divinity.
The Response
This interpretation reads the opposite of what the text says in order to rescue the divinity doctrine. Jesus says no one is good except God and declines the compliment. Reading this as an implicit claim to divinity requires the text to mean the opposite of what it says.
4. I Am A Prophet
The Argument
Mark 6:4: “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives.” Jesus describes himself as a prophet. He is not quoted correcting anyone who identifies him as a prophet. The crowd at the triumphal entry calls him a prophet (Matthew 21:11). Jesus places himself in the lineage of the prophets who were killed before him (Luke 13:34). He operates within, not above, the prophetic tradition.
Key Scriptures
What Christians Claim
Jesus accepted worship, forgave sins, and performed miracles – acts that exceed the prophetic role.
The Response
Elijah and Elisha also performed miracles including raising the dead. Moses mediated between God and Israel. The prophetic tradition already included acts that exceed ordinary human capacity. Jesus’s miracles place him within, not above, the tradition he himself claimed.
5. Son of Man – The Prophetic Tradition
The Argument
The Ezekiel connection is critical and underexplored. Ezekiel is addressed as “son of man” 93 times – precisely to emphasize that he is human before God. The cloud imagery in Ezekiel 1 (God arriving in clouds) is inverted in the Gospels: Jesus arrives in clouds. This is a deliberate typological echo. The Gospel writers, with access to the Septuagint, are consciously framing Jesus using Ezekiel’s framework – but inverting the direction of arrival.
Key Scriptures
What Christians Claim
The cloud imagery indicates divine presence and glory – Jesus arriving in clouds signals his divine nature.
The Response
In Ezekiel, it is God who arrives in clouds, not the son of man who observes it. The inversion – Jesus arriving where God arrived in Ezekiel – is either a claim to identity with God (which Jesus otherwise avoids) or a conscious literary inversion by the Gospel authors. The second interpretation requires less retrofitting of the texts.
6. John 10:30 and the Misunderstanding
The Argument
“I and the Father are one” (John 10:30) is the primary proof text for Jesus’s divinity. But the context is crucial: Jesus has just said the Father and he share the purpose of protecting the sheep. The Greek for “one” (hen) is neuter – it indicates unity of purpose, not identity of person. Jesus uses the same word for believers being “one” with each other in John 17:21. If John 10:30 proves Jesus is God, John 17:21 proves believers are God.
Key Scriptures
What Christians Claim
John 10:30 is correctly read as a unity claim that includes ontological identity – the Jews understood it as a divine claim and tried to stone him.
The Response
The Jews’ reaction proves they heard a divine claim, not that Jesus made one. Jesus immediately contests their interpretation (John 10:34 – 36), citing Psalm 82 where humans are called “gods.” He uses their own scripture to argue that the divine language does not require the conclusion they drew.
7. The Subordination Texts
The Argument
The New Testament contains explicit statements of Jesus’s subordination to the Father. “The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). “The Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing” (John 5:19). “My Father and your Father, my God and your God” (John 20:17). Jesus prays to the Father – a God does not pray to God. These texts flatly contradict the Trinitarian reading.
Key Scriptures
What Christians Claim
The subordination texts reflect Jesus’s human nature. The divinity texts reflect his divine nature. Trinitarian theology holds both together.
The Response
Trinitarian theology is a fourth-century solution to this textual contradiction – not a conclusion the texts themselves reach. The texts contradict each other. Nicaea resolved the contradiction institutionally, not textually.
8. The First Commandment Problem
The Argument
Exodus 20:3: “You shall have no other gods before me.” Christians worship Jesus as God. Jesus himself called the greatest commandment loving the Lord your God – and he quoted the Shema, which begins “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” If Jesus is not God, worshipping him violates the commandment Jesus himself prioritized. Christians worship Jesus in violation of the commandment Jesus called most important.
Key Scriptures
What Christians Claim
Worshipping Jesus does not violate monotheism because Jesus is God – the second person of the Trinity.
The Response
The Trinity is a doctrine Jesus never articulated, established by a council he never convened, using the term “homoousios” that does not appear in the Bible. The Shema – which Jesus quoted – is unambiguously unitarian. The God Jesus worshipped and called greatest was not a Trinity.
9. Nicaea – The Vote
The Argument
At the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, the question of whether Jesus was fully divine (Nicene) or subordinate to the Father (Arian) was decided by a vote of bishops. The vote was not unanimous – significant Arian sympathy remained. The losing position – that Jesus was subordinate to the Father – has more direct textual support than the winning position. The doctrine of Christ’s full divinity is a political decision with theological packaging.
Key Scriptures
What Christians Claim
The Council of Nicaea did not invent the doctrine of Christ’s divinity – it defended and formalized what the church had always believed against Arian revision.
The Response
“What the church had always believed” was contested enough to require an empire-sponsored council to settle it. The fact that it required a vote means it was not settled. The Arian reading – that Jesus was first-born of creation, subordinate to the Father – has explicit textual support. It lost a vote, not an argument.
10. The Exaltation
The Argument
Philippians 2:9: “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name.” You cannot exalt what is already highest. You cannot give a name to one who already possesses it. The exaltation texts presuppose that Jesus was not always in the position he came to occupy. His divine status was granted, not inherent. This is the language of elevation, not of eternal coequal deity.
Key Scriptures
What Christians Claim
The exaltation refers to Christ’s human nature being raised to glory – his divine nature was never diminished.
The Response
This “two natures” solution is another post-Nicene construction that the texts do not articulate. Acts 2:36 says God made Jesus “both Lord and Christ” – past tense, post-resurrection. The exaltation texts read most naturally as describing someone who became what he was not before. That is not the language of eternal coequal divinity.
