Jesus Was NOT a Good Teacher If anyone taught the things about themselves that
Jesus taught about Himself, they would be an awful, terrible, horrendous teacher.
Suppose you had a teacher who was very nice and treated you and all of your fellow students
better than anyone else you’ve ever met. But, in the middle of the lecture, this teacher said,
“Hey guys, if you pray to me, I can give you whatever you ask for.” You’d be like…
(Bruh…)
The reason you would be like…
(Bruh…)
…is because your teacher just assumed two
things about themself that are NOT true of any human being.
The first is that they are worthy of your prayers. Only God is worthy of
prayer. To pray to a man would be to commit blasphemy against God.
The second is that they grant all of your requests. To be able to grant any request,
that individual must be omnipotent – all-powerful. But, only God is
all-powerful. To suggest that one is all-powerful is to suggest that he or
she has the very power & authority of God. Again, this is blasphemy.
You cannot be a good teacher if you are committing blasphemy.
With this in mind, look at what Jesus said about Himself:
“Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in
the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” (John 14:13-14)
The asking in Jesus’ name is set after He returns to the Father in heaven. Thus, this,
“asking,” is not merely an earthly conversation, it is a prayer offered to Jesus. At this point,
we need to pause; if Jesus is not truly God then it would be blasphemy to pray to Him.
Further, He says that whatever one may ask in His name He will do. This means
that Jesus must possess God’s attribute of omnipotence. Therefore, if Jesus is just a man
– just a teacher – then He has just committed a gross blasphemy, which would make Him a sinner.
Returning to your hypothetical teacher,
imagine now that they said they would be with each of you wherever you go. This
would demand that they are omnipresent - that they exist everywhere at all times.
(Ain’t nobody got time for that!)
Jesus made this exact claim a little bit later in John 14:
Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word;
and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” (John 14:23)
In other words, He says that both He and the Father will tabernacle spiritually with
all those who love Him. Given that those who love Jesus have existed across time & space,
only a Being Who is truly Divine can accomplish this. The Father is truly
Divine – truly God – which is why the Father can do this. Likewise, for Jesus to be able to
do the same with His Father means He possesses the same Divine attributes as His Father. Therefore,
the nature of the Father is the same as the Son; if the Father is truly God, so is the Son.
If Jesus is just a man – just a teacher – then He has just committed another gross blasphemy.
No matter how, “good,” nice, pious or compassionate your hypothetical teacher is,
if they ran around saying this kind of stuff,
most of us would recognize that they are either lying or they should be in an asylum.
Three chapters later in John 17, during His high priestly prayer,
Jesus said, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom You have sent,” in reference to His Father.
“Hah! See! Jesus denied that He was God. He was just a man!”
Not so fast. Look at what else He said…
The first thing to notice is that Jesus demands twice that the Father glorify Him. In verse 5
specifically, Jesus qualifies the kind of glory He is demanding – the same kind of glory due to the
Father; the glory He had with the Father before the world was (in other words, before creation).
Jesus’ demand tells us two things: 1) He is glorious just as the Father and 2) He has existed
eternally. To be eternal and glorious are two attributes that are only true of the one true God.
If any man or woman were to demand that God glorify them with the same kind of glory
possessed by God Himself, it would be blasphemy of the highest order. Further, for any human to
claim that they possessed such glory prior to creation would be absolutely absurd.
BUT WAIT…
Jesus makes the following claim in John 10…
…that no one will snatch His sheep from His hand. The Old Testament says the same thing of God
in Deuteronomy 32:39. Jesus has made a claim of Himself that is only attributable to God.
If Jesus was merely a teacher, then He was either insane or He was lying . However,
if Jesus was without sin, as the Bible says He was,
then everything He said was true – meaning that He must, of necessity, be truly God.