What did Jesus say about himself?
Jesus made claims about himself that his listeners found either absurd or blasphemous, and rarely anything in between. He forgave sins directly, spoke of existing before Abraham, accepted worship, and said that seeing him was seeing the Father. He also called himself a servant and said he came to give his life for others.
What Jesus said
The most common title he used for himself was Son of Man, which is deliberately layered. It sounds ordinary and also carries a reference from Daniel to a figure given authority over everything.
He forgives sins in Mark 2 and the religious scholars present immediately understand the implication and object, because in their framework only God does that. Jesus does not correct their reading of what he just did.
In John he uses a series of statements beginning with I am, culminating in a line about existing before Abraham that causes the crowd to pick up stones. When Philip asks him to show them the Father, he answers that anyone who has seen him has seen the Father.
And alongside all of that, the self description is service. He says the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. The claim and the posture sit together and neither cancels the other.
The hard part
These claims do not leave a comfortable middle position where Jesus was simply a wise teacher with good ethics. The ethics come from the same mouth as the claims, in the same conversations. Anyone taking the teaching seriously eventually has to decide what to do with the person making it, and the gospels are structured to force that question rather than avoid it.
What this looks like today
- •Read one gospel start to finish before deciding. Most opinions about Jesus are formed secondhand.
- •Notice how often the claim comes attached to service rather than to power.
- •Hold the question open honestly rather than settling it early. He engaged people who were still deciding.
Mark 2:1-12, John 8:48-59, John 14:8-11, Mark 10:45, Matthew 16:13-17
Go deeper: this comes up in the 40 days