The Son of God

Jesus said, “I am the Son of God” (John 10:36). What does that claim mean to you? Does this “I am” statement change your life? Does it affect your world today? Does it change the way you do business, the way you treat your family, the way you follow the Savior? It should. Everything in the Bible points to the fact that Jesus is God.

Jesus is called “God” in the Bible. The prophet Isaiah said Messiah will be called “Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God” (Isaiah 9:6). The disciple Thomas fell before Jesus and said, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). The apostle Paul said Christ “is over all, God blessed for ever” (Romans 9:5). And the apostle John said, “we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life” (1 John 5:20). If anyone says to you that the Bible doesn’t say Jesus is God, tell them to go back and read their Bible again.

Jesus exists in “the form of God” (Philippians 2:6). He is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), and He is “the express image of His [God’s] person” (Hebrews 1:3). The Son of God manifests divine attributes: omnipresence (Matthew 28:20), omnipotence (Hebrews 1:3), omniscience (Colossians 2:3), righteousness (2 Timothy 4:8) and more. Jesus claimed to be God. And what’s more, Jesus did things only God could do, such as forgiving sin (Luke 5:20-21) and giving life (John 5:20-21).

In fact, the “I am” passages in John’s Gospel are all about Jesus being God. These are not simply earthly metaphors; they are metaphors of divinity. They show the divine nature of the Vine, the Door, the Good Shepherd. There’s something more to this “I AM” than what the religious leaders saw. There’s a sufficiency in Him to sustain us as the Bread of Life, to give us life as the Resurrection and the Life, to open the door to heaven as the Way. He is sufficient because He is God. If He were not God, He couldn’t possibly be sufficient for all the things the “I am” statements claim.

Paul knew this. He wrote to the Corinthian believers, “such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: not that we are sufficient of ourselves … but our sufficiency is of God” (2 Corinthians 3:4-5). God’s sufficiency becomes our sufficiency when the Son of God becomes our Savior. Our eternal Savior is not a good man who tragically died; our Savior is God the Son, who laid down His life for us (John 10:18).

Jesus is what no other religious leader dare claim to be: He is the Son of God, God in the form of the Son. To the religious leaders of His day He boldly proclaimed, “I and My Father are one” (John 10:30). And when they questioned Him further and accused Him of blasphemy He reiterated, “I am the Son of God.”

—Condensed from The I Am God by Woodrow Kroll.