Who Did Jesus Claim to Be?

More Than a Good Teacher

Ask most people what they think of Jesus and you will hear things like: "He was a great moral teacher." "He taught people to be kind." "He was like Gandhi or the Buddha."

These are meant as compliments. But there is a problem: Jesus himself would not have accepted them.

A "good teacher" tells people how to live. Jesus did that. But he also said things that no mere teacher would ever say. He claimed authority that, if he were just a human being, would make him either deeply dishonest or deeply disturbed. Let's look at what Jesus actually said about himself, using the earliest sources historians have.

What Jesus Actually Claimed

These claims come from the earliest Christian sources, many of which even skeptical scholars accept as historically rooted:

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  He claimed authority to forgive sins. When a paralyzed man was brought to Jesus, he said, "Son, your sins are forgiven" (Mark 2:5). The religious leaders in the room were outraged: "Who can forgive sins but God alone?" They understood exactly what Jesus was claiming. Forgiving someone who sinned against you is one thing. Claiming to forgive sins against God is something only God could do.
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  He claimed to be the final judge of all humanity. Jesus said that at the end of history, he would sit in judgment over every person who ever lived, separating the righteous from the unrighteous (Matthew 25:31-33). No prophet, rabbi, or teacher in Jewish history ever claimed this. Judgment belonged to God alone.
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  He accepted worship. In Jewish monotheism, worship belongs to God and God alone. The Ten Commandments are clear: "You shall have no other gods before me." Yet Jesus accepted worship from his followers and never corrected them (Matthew 14:33, 28:9, John 9:38). A good Jewish teacher would have been horrified at being worshiped, unless he believed he was worthy of it.
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  He called God his own Father in a unique way. Jesus used the Aramaic word Abba (an intimate term like "Dad") when speaking to God and referred to himself as God's Son in a way that set him apart from everyone else. He said, "All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son" (Matthew 11:27). This is not how a Jewish teacher talks. This is a claim of unique, exclusive relationship with the Creator of the universe.
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  He claimed to have existed before Abraham. When challenged by Jewish leaders, Jesus said, "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58). "I AM" is the name God gave himself when speaking to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14). The crowd understood instantly. They picked up stones to kill him for blasphemy. They knew exactly what he was claiming.

The Earliest Evidence: Creeds Before the Gospels

Here is something many people do not know: some of the strongest evidence for what early Christians believed about Jesus comes from before the Gospels were written.

Scholars have identified early creedal formulas, hymns, and confessions embedded within Paul's letters. These are passages that Paul quotes rather than composes, meaning they were already circulating as established beliefs before Paul wrote them down. The most important ones include:

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  1 Corinthians 15:3-7 (dated by scholars to within 3-5 years of the crucifixion). Paul writes: "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins... that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day... and that he appeared to Cephas [Peter], then to the twelve." This is not Paul's invention. He says he received it, likely from Peter and James in Jerusalem just a few years after Jesus's death (Galatians 1:18-19).
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  Philippians 2:6-11 (widely regarded as a pre-Pauline hymn). This hymn says Jesus existed "in the form of God" before becoming human. It was being sung in churches so early that Paul could quote it as something his readers already knew.
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  Romans 1:3-4 (another early creedal fragment). Paul quotes an existing confession declaring Jesus to be "the Son of God in power" through his resurrection from the dead.

Why does this matter? Because it means the belief that Jesus was divine was not a legend that slowly developed over centuries. It was there from the very beginning, within a few years of the events themselves. This is far too early for legend to explain.

C.S. Lewis and the Trilemma

C.S. Lewis, the former atheist who became one of Christianity's most famous defenders, pointed out that Jesus's claims leave us with only three logical options:

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  Liar. Jesus knew he was not God but deliberately deceived people into thinking he was. But this does not fit what we know about him. His moral teachings are among the most admired in history, even by atheists. He died rather than retract his claims. People who are running a scam tend to fold when threatened with execution, not go through with it.
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  Lunatic. Jesus sincerely believed he was God but was mentally ill. But delusional people tend to be erratic and disconnected from reality. Jesus was calm under pressure, brilliant in debate, compassionate with individuals, and produced teachings that have shaped civilizations. His psychological profile does not fit mental illness.
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  Lord. Jesus was telling the truth. He was who he claimed to be. This is the one option that most people try to avoid, but it is the one that fits all the evidence.

Lewis wrote: "You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us."

What Bart Ehrman Gets Right and Where He Goes Wrong

Bart Ehrman, the prominent agnostic New Testament scholar, has written extensively about how "Jesus became God." He argues that Jesus himself probably did not claim to be God in the way the later church taught, and that the idea of Jesus's divinity evolved gradually over decades.

Here is what Ehrman gets right: Jesus was a first-century Jew, and he expressed his identity using the categories of his time and culture. He did not walk around saying "I am the second person of the Trinity" in philosophical Greek. He spoke in Aramaic and used Jewish imagery.

But here is where the evidence pushes back against Ehrman's reconstruction:

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  The creeds are too early. If belief in Jesus's divine status evolved gradually, you would expect early sources to show a merely human Jesus and later sources to show a divine one. Instead, the earliest sources we have (the pre-Pauline creeds, dating to the early 30s AD) already present Jesus as the risen Lord who existed "in the form of God." The "gradual evolution" theory has a timing problem.
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  The Jewish context makes invention unlikely. First-century Jews were fiercely monotheistic. They would rather die than worship a human being. Yet within a few years of the crucifixion, Jewish followers of Jesus were singing hymns to him "as to a god" (as even the Roman governor Pliny confirmed). Something extraordinary must have happened to make devout Jews worship a crucified man.
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  The Gospel claims are consistent. The earliest Gospel, Mark, already shows Jesus forgiving sins, claiming divine authority, and using the title "Son of Man" in ways that echo the divine figure in Daniel 7. This is not a late addition. It is present from the earliest layer of the tradition.

Common Objections