Question: Who says Jesus Christ is G-D?
My Answer:
Jesus himself made this claim, but he did it in subtle ways. When we are not familiar with metaphors and specific phrases used by God's people in the days of Jesus and in the days of the Old Testament, (the Jewish Bible) we miss the subtle claims. In the book of Exodus, chapter 3, Moses asked the voice in the burning bush what his name was. Here is the conversation:
"But Moses said to God, 'If I come to the Israelties and say to them, 'The God of your ancestors has sent me to you', and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?' God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM" He said further, 'Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'I AM has sent me to you' God also said to Moses, Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you': This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations." (Exodus 3:13-15 - NRSV).
This is the origin of the Hebrew name for God, Yahweh, which is very similar to the Hebrew sounds for the phrase, "I am who I am". The Hebrews considered the name too sacred to write or say, and so they substituted the word LORD for the name.
Now back to Jesus. The New Testament was originally written in Greek. In Greek the phrase, "I am", can be stated in two ways, the simple way, "I am", (transliterated eimi), which would be used in ordinary conversation, and the emphatic way, which emphasizes the letter I. This would be transliterated as ego eimi. It literally means, I, I am. In the Gospel of John it is recorded that Jesus said many "I am" sayings. These are: "I am the bread of life", (John 6:35); "I am the light of the world" (8:12), "I am the gate for the sheep (10:7), "I am the gate" (10:9), "I am the good shepherd" (10:11), I am the resurrection and the life" (11:25), "I am the way, and the truth, and the life" (14:6), "I am the true vine" (15:1). In every single one of these sayings, Jesus did not say the simple, "I am" that one would use in ordinary conversation. But, in every single one, Jesus used the emphatic, "I am", which would correctly be translated as, "I, I AM". In other words, every time Jesus uttered an "I am" saying in the Gospel of John, he was making the claim to be the "Great I AM" who the Jewish people understood to be their God, the God of their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who spoke to Moses from the burning bush.
In the days of Jesus, the Jewish Rabbis referred to the Jewish Torah (their law) as the bread of life, the water of life, and the light of the world. When Jesus used these phrases to refer to himself he was claiming to be greater than the Torah, the Jewish Law. This angered many of the Jewish teachers of his day. Even though Jesus did not say, "I am the water of life", he referred to himself as "living water" in a conversation with a Samaritan woman in John, chapter 4.
Jesus claimed to be God more by his actions than by his words. The Jewish people had believed that only God had power over the forces of nature. In his ministry Jesus demonstrated unusual powers in his miracles.
1) Jesus performed miracles of healing when he healed the blind, the deaf, the lame, the lepers, and those with many other illnesses. In Isaiah 35 these are the signs that would be present in the Messianic Age.
2) Jesus performed miracles over nature when he fed the multitudes, stopped the storm on the Sea of Galilee, and walked on the Sea of Galilee. These are the actions of God in Psalm 107.
3) Jesus performed miracles over demons when he cast them out. The people of his day thought of the demons as being under the control of Satan, and so Jesus demonstrated power greater than that of Satan.
4) Jesus performed miracles over death when he raised three people from the dead (Mark 5:21-34 and 35-43, Luke 7:11-17, and John 11:1-44). The Pharisees believed that the dead would be raised when the Messianic Age broke in, and when Jesus raised the dead on three separate occasions, this was a sign of what he would do for all people at the end of the age.
The writers of the four Gospels and the Apostle Paul in his letters also made divine claims for Jesus. Here are some but not all of the references to Jesus being God (or the Son of God) in the New Testament Bible.
1) In his letter to the Philippians the Apostle Paul writes: "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as somethng to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death--even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Phillipians 2:5-11) Many biblical scholars believe that in this passage the Apostle Paul was quoting an early Christian hymn.
2) The Gospel of John begins with the author claiming that Jesus is the Word of God: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1) "And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14) "No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known." (John 1:18)
3) The Gospel of Mark begins by claiming that Jesus is the Son of God, "The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God". The Gospel of Mark ends with the same claim when Jesus died, but it is uttered by the Roman centurion observing the cricifixion for the Roman government. "Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, 'Truly this man was God's Son!" (Mark 15:39).
4) The Gospel of Matthew, chapter one, refers to Jesus as "Immanuel", which in Hebrew means, "God is with us". At the end of the Gospel of Matthew, the writer writes: "And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:18-20.)
5) In the Gospel of Luke, the author tells us that the angel Gabriel visited Mary and said, "You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and he will be called the Son of the Most High ... the child to be born will be holy; he will be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:32 and 35c).
Most biblical scholars agree that the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written before the close of the first century, which means that the first Christians accepted Jesus as being the Son of God. When the Christian Church later accepted these four gospels as Scripture and therefore as part of the Christian canon the Christian Church also accepted that Jesus was the Son of God.
However, Christians in the early centuries understood this in different ways. Therefore, representatives to the early Church Councils at Nicea, 325 A.D. (or CE), and Constantinople, 381 A.D. (or CE), wrestled with this issue and finally declared that Jesus is the divine Son of God and set this forth in the Nicene Creed, which is the most ecumenical of all the church creeds.
Today, the churches that accept the Nicene Creed and what it means also accept and teach that Jesus is the Son of God. The Nicene Creed teaches that Almighty God is a Trinity of Persons who are called, "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit", and that Jesus is the second person of the Trinitarian God.
So the answer to the question, "Who says that Jesus is God? is: Those who say Jesus is God includes: Jesus himself, Jesus' early followers, St. Paul, the writers of the four Gospels in the Bible, the early Christian Church and its leaders, and most Churches of today.