I remember when I first heard the song, Jesus Christ Superstar, back in the 1970s. At first, I thought it was an assault against Christianity. However, a deeper understanding crept in slowly over the years, and I came to recognize that many of the questions asked in the song are troubling questions many of us have in real life. So, the rock opera “Jesus Christ Superstar” mimicked the attitudes and sensibilities of the times in my early adult life.
“Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ! Who are you? What have you sacrificed?”[1] We were leaving the Vietnam protests and the drug culture of the 60s, and there was a sudden question about how Jesus fit into all this. There was the rise of the Jesus People in the late 60s, early 70s, and beginning on the west coast of America, it pretty much spread throughout the world before finally fading away sometime in the late 80s. With the rise of the Jesus Movement came the rock opera almost like a backlash, putting the question to Jesus: “Who are you?” which turns the question back on him that he asked his disciples, “Whom do you say I am?” (Matthew 16:15). Jesus has always been a paradox of folks.
So, who, actually, is Jesus? While it is possible to say he is God who became man (John 1:1, 14), would this be the Jesus, his disciples tell us, when they wrote of him? Think about it; all that we know about the Jesus of history is what they tell us. Yet, is there anything in the four narratives that we have, that actually claims to record Jesus’ words, which tell us who he claimed to be? Yes, I believe there are such parts of the narratives that tell us who Jesus claimed to be.
First of all, he claimed to be a man, like any other man who ever lived. Jesus said that, by himself, he was unable to do the mighty works that he did (John 5:19), and it was the Father who did those works done by him (John 14:10). Moreover, Jesus held out this very fact, vis-à-vis that he was a man and unable to do miracles, that it was God who sent him, and believing in him was the same as believing in God, because the miracles, Jesus did, verified God’s approval of all Jesus said and did (John 10:37-38; 14:11).
Secondly, Jesus claimed to be God! In John 6:32-33 Jesus claimed he was the Bread that came down from heaven. Moses gave physical bread to the nourishment of their bodies, but the Father, in giving the Son (John 3:16) has given mankind spiritual Bread from heaven, and Jesus, vis-à-vis the Bread from heaven, gives eternal life to the world (cp. John 6:35, 38, 47-51, 61-63).
During Jesus trial before the Sanhedrin only hours before his crucifixion, he said nothing, while his false accusers lied about the things he said. When the high priest couldn’t take Jesus’ silence any longer, he challenged him in the name of God, calling God to witness, he asked Jesus if he truly were the Son of the Living God (Matthew 26:63; Mark 14:61; Luke 22:70). How Jesus answered that question shows us who he believed he was. While the reader will not find the words: “I am God” coming from Jesus’ lips anywhere in the four narratives, Jesus told the high priest and all those with him that, at least some of those among them who live to see the day, will live to see Jesus coming in the clouds of heaven in judgment, vis-à-vis seated at the right hand of God (Matthew 26:64; Mark 14:62; Luke 22:69). The language of Jesus coming in the clouds is apocalyptic in nature and represents God coming in judgment (cp. Isaiah 19:1; Deuteronomy 33:26; Psalm 68:33-34). Thus, in Jesus’ own words, as they are recorded in the four narratives, Jesus claimed to be God, but had come down from heaven as man.
Paul would later describe this, saying the One who became Jesus had been in the FORM of God, vis-à-vis he had a “body” that was equal to that of God. Nevertheless, he set the FORM of God aside and took to himself the form of man, and being found in the fashion of men, he became obedient to God even to his death on the cross (Philippians 2:5-8). Thus, we have in Jesus’ own words that he was both God and man, and Paul described for us how that was done.
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[1] First line of the song, “Jesus Christ Superstar” a rock opera by the same name, by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.
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