Who Does Jesus Think He Is?

Jesus’s Identity

The Bible’s covenantal storyline serves as the metanarrative to identify who Jesus is and as the background to the New Testament’s presentation of him.¹ Who is Jesus? According to Scripture, he is the one who inaugurates God’s kingdom and the new covenant age. In him, the full forgiveness of sin is achieved, the eschatological Spirit is poured out, the new creation dawns, and all God’s promises reach their fulfillment. But this raises an important question: Who can do this? Scripture answers: the only one who can do it is both Yahweh (Lord) and the obedient human Son, and the New Testament presents Jesus in precisely this way.

But did Jesus know himself to be God the Son incarnate? Did Jesus self-identify as the eternal Son of the Father, the promised human Messiah, who came to reveal the Father, do the works of God, and by so doing, demonstrate that he is God the Son? These are not easy questions to answer. On the one hand, Scripture teaches that Jesus was born, “increased in wisdom and in stature” (Luke 2:52), and did not know certain things (Matt. 24:36). This reality reveals that Jesus is fully human, the promised “seed” of the woman (Gen. 3:15 ESV mg.), and thus able to act as our covenant head and Redeemer. On the other hand, Jesus’s self-understanding is that he is more than merely a human image-son; he is also the divine Son. Our focus here is on the latter point, without minimizing the former. Let us look at the explicit witness of Jesus to his own identity, set within the Bible’s storyline and interpretive framework.

The Person of Christ

Stephen J. Wellum

In this addition to the Short Studies in Systematic Theology, Stephen J. Wellum examines the divinity and humanity of Christ, focusing on who Jesus is from Scripture and historical theology, showing readers why Jesus is unique and how they should think about the incarnation.

The Explicit Witness of Christ

Jesus’s entire life testified to who he thought he was. There are important aspects of his earthly life that implicitly reveal his self-identity to be the divine Son. But in addition to Jesus’s implicit witness regarding himself, we also have explicit statements that reveal his self-identity as the divine Son, who is also the human son, in relation to his Father.

Use of Abba

Jesus addresses God by the Aramaic term Abba, which reveals how he perceives his relationship to the Father: it is singular and unique (Matt. 6:9; 11:25–26).² When Jesus teaches his disciples how to address God, he teaches them to pray, “Our Father” (Matt. 6:9; John 20:17). But Jesus views his relationship to his Father as unique. We call God Abba as adopted sons because of Jesus’s work and our covenant union with him (see Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6). Jesus’s use of the term, however, is due to his unique relationship to his Father—he is the eternal Son (John 1:1; 5:19–30; 17:5).

Son of God³

Jesus as the eternal Son is reinforced by the title—indeed, name—Son of God. The title appears in the Synoptic Gospels and occupies a central place in John’s Gospel (John 3:16; 5:19– 23). It is applied to Jesus at his baptism (Mark 1:11), temptation (Luke 4:9), and transfiguration (Mark 9:7). In John, the title is so central to Christ’s identity that John writes the Gospel “so that [his readers] may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31).

Once again, to grasp the significance of what Jesus means by self-identifying as God’s Son, we must think in terms of the Old Testament. First, son is closely identified with image of God, and as such, it is applied to key typological figures: Adam (Luke 3:38), Israel (Ex. 4:22–23), and the Davidic king (2 Sam. 7:14), who are to represent God. Building on this pattern, Jesus is the true son, namely, the human son, who fulfills the role of previous sons but who is greater (Rom. 1:3–4; Phil. 2:6–11).

Jesus’s incarnational sonship, however, is not the whole story. Already in the Old Testament we learn that David’s greater Son takes on the identity of Yahweh. From this we discover that Jesus’s sonship is more than being a mere human; he is also the eternal Son, the true image and exact representation of the Father (Col. 1:15–17; Heb. 1:2–3), and thus united as one with the Father and disclosing in time something of God’s eternal, intra-Trinitarian divine life.

This truth is underscored by Jesus himself. As noted, Jesus regularly addresses God as Abba, or “Father” (Matt. 11:25; 16:17; Luke 23:46). These expressions go beyond a mere human relationship. As a child, Jesus tells his earthly parents of his unique Son-Father relationship (Luke 2:49). Before his death, Jesus speaks of his eternal sonship: “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (John 17:5). Not only does Jesus know that he is appointed to be the Son in his incarnate life, he also knows that he has always been the eternal Son. John 5:16–20 and Matthew 11:25–27 prove this point.

In John 5, after healing a crippled man, Jesus responds to those who criticize him for working on the Sabbath: “My Father is working until now, and I am working” (John 5:17). In so doing, Jesus not only calls God his own Father, he also makes himself equal with God by claiming the same authority as God to work on the Sabbath. And in the following verses, Jesus explains that the validity of his Sabbath work is based on the divine nature of all his works (specifically judgment and resurrection), the divine worship warranted by these works (John 5:22–23), and the divine aseity (John 5:26) of the one who performs these works. Who does Jesus think he is? He views himself as the eternal Son who shares with the Father the divine nature and thus has the right and authority to do all that God does.

Jesus also speaks of his divine sonship in Matthew 11:25–27, this time in terms of mutual knowledge and shared sovereignty with the Father—an explicit claim to deity. Yet Jesus’s divine self-identity does not contradict his self-identity as the human son. Both must be affirmed.

Son of Man

Jesus also testifies to his identity as God the Son incarnate by his most common self-designation, the Son of Man. The title is used in the Gospels and always by Jesus himself. Again, to grasp what Jesus means by the title, it’s crucial to understand it within its Old Testament background.⁴

No doubt, the title refers to Jesus’s humanity. In the Old Testament, “son of man” is used as a synonym for humans in the context of our role in creation (Ps. 8:4). But in Daniel 7, “son of man” takes on the significance of a superhuman figure who functions alongside the “Ancient of Days,” that is, Yahweh. In Daniel’s vision, God gives his kingdom to “one like a son of man” (Dan. 7:13–14). But this son of man is different from all others: he comes on the “clouds of heaven,” his reign lasts forever, and his reign gives dominion over the whole earth to his kingdom people (Dan. 7:13–14, 18, 22, 27), thus identifying him with God. So, this son of man is the promised son-king, who, because he is both God and human, will bring reconciliation between God and humans and restore our righteous vice-regent rule over God’s creation.

When Jesus steps into this biblical storyline as the self-designated Son of Man, he makes an astounding claim regarding his identity. As the Son of Man, Jesus identifies as both God and man. Jesus uses the title in his humiliation as a man to save the lost (Matt. 8:20; Mark 10:45), in his divine authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:10), and in his divine power to resurrect the dead (Matt. 17:9). And Jesus also refers to himself as the Son of Man in his resurrected-incarnational ascension to the throne of heaven (Matt. 19:28) and in his foretelling of his future return as the king of heaven, “coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matt. 24:30).

Divine Purpose and Work

Jesus also identifies as God the Son incarnate in the purpose of his coming. On numerous occasions, Jesus offers “I have come to” statements, in which he reveals why he has come.

For example, Jesus declares that he has come to preach the good news of the kingdom (Mark 1:38), to fulfill the Law and the Prophets (Matt. 5:17), to call sinners to himself (Matt. 9:13), and so on. In each case, Jesus understands his own identity in divine terms.⁵ Even more explicit is Jesus’s self-identity as the one who forgives sins (Mark 2:1–12). The religious leaders correctly assert that God alone forgives sins. But they fail to see that Jesus is the divine Son and that the promised forgiveness of sin and covenantal reconciliation between God and humans are fulfilled in Jesus. In him, Immanuel, “God with us,” is here (Matt. 1:21–23; cf. Jer. 31:34).⁶ The temple, priesthood, and sacrificial system played their typological function to set the stage for God himself to come as the man Jesus to achieve our eternal redemption.

“I Am”

Alongside the purpose statements in the Synoptics, John’s Gospel gives us the famous “I am” (Gk. egō eimi) statements by which Jesus self-identifies with God. When Jesus refers to himself as “I am” without a predicate (John 6:20; John 8:24, 28, 58; John 18:5, 6, 8), he links his personal identity with the unique, personal name of Yahweh, the Creator–covenant Lord (Ex. 3:6, 14). It’s as if Jesus has stepped into the Old Testament storyline and explicitly called himself God.

For example, in John 8, Jesus concludes another controversy with the Jews regarding his origin and identity by declaring, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). The Jewish leaders are clinging to their descent from Abraham. But Jesus explicitly refers to himself as “I am” to reveal himself to be the God of Abraham. Another example is John 13:19. As Tom Schreiner rightly notes, “The use of ‘I am’ demonstrates that such predictions are not merely the prophecies of an ordinary prophet. Jesus demonstrates his deity by proclaiming what will happen before it occurs.”⁷ Even more, Jesus knows that he has existed as the Son in an eternal relation with his Father when he prays, “Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (John 17:5). All this data points to the fact that Jesus knows that he has been one with the Father from eternity and thus is the divine Son.

In addition, Jesus also identifies with Yahweh by referring to himself as the typological fulfillment of various Old Testament persons, events, and institutions. For example, in John 10:11, Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd.” By using this predicate within the plotline of Scripture, Jesus is not only claiming to fulfill the role of Israel’s kings to shepherd the people while all those kings failed (Ezek. 34:1–9), he is also identifying himself with God (Ps. 23; Ezek. 34:11–13). Thus, in all Jesus’s “I am” sayings, he explicitly identifies as God the Son incarnate.

Our Object of Faith

Finally, Jesus explicitly makes himself the object of saving faith that is reserved for God alone. Repeatedly, the Old Testament teaches that “salvation belongs to the Lord!” (Jonah 2:9). The New Testament doesn’t contradict this truth, but it now makes Jesus the proper object of saving faith (see John 12:44; 14:1; Acts 16:34; Rom. 4:3, 5, 17, 24; Gal. 3:6; 1 Thess. 1:8; Titus 3:8; Heb. 6:1; 1 Pet. 1:21).⁸

This shift to Jesus does not mean that he is a rival object of faith. Instead, it entails that Jesus, as the Son, is deity yet distinct from the Father. Within the Bible’s covenantal storyline, which Jesus knows well, he can confidently center his disciples’ faith in him precisely because he knows he is the divine Son. No doubt, the New Testament presents Jesus as a model of faith for us, but before we can model our faith after Jesus, Scripture commands us to trust him as the object of our faith, as the God of our salvation. As the apostles testify in light of the advent of Christ, “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12; see also Acts 10:43; 16:31; Rom. 10:9–11; 1 Cor. 1:2; 1 John 3:23; 5:13).

Did Jesus know himself to be God the Son incarnate? The answer to this question is yes.⁹ This in no way minimizes Christ’s true humanity and the fact that he “increased in wisdom and in stature” (Luke 2:52). Yet Scripture teaches that Jesus is more than a mere human; he is also the eternal Son of the Father, who has become human. By investigating Jesus’s implicit and explicit words and works, we have discovered that Jesus knew that he was the Son who had come from heaven to do as a man on earth what only God could do. By making the specific claims he made, and doing the particular works he did at the precise point he came in the storyline of Scripture, Jesus made a clear claim: he is God the Son incarnate. It is for this reason that the church rightly confesses that Jesus is Lord, the Word made flesh for our salvation, and thus truly worthy of our faith, love, obedience, and worship.

Notes:

This paragraph is adapted from Stephen J. Wellum, “Christological Reflections in Light of Scripture’s Covenants,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 16, no. 2 (2012): 79–107. Used by permission of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology.
See Joachim Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), 12.
For a detailed treatment of the title Son, see D. A. Carson, Jesus the Son of God: A Christological Title Often Overlooked, Sometimes Misunderstood, and Currently Disputed (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012); Graeme Goldsworthy, The Son of God and the New Creation, Short Studies in Biblical Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015).
See Schreiner, New Testament Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 213–31; C. F. D. Moule, The Origin of Christology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 11–22.
On this point, see Gathercole, The Preexistent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 83–189.
See Carson, Matthew, in vol. 8 of The Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,1984), 222.
Schreiner, New Testament Theology, 253
See Harris, Three Crucial Questions (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1994), 77.
Our conclusion that Jesus self-identifies as God the Son incarnate differs from N. T. Wright. Wright has turned back unwarranted skepticism among biblical scholars regarding the historical Jesus, but he denies that Jesus knew he was God the Son; see N. T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 96–125. Wright contends that Jesus viewed himself as carrying out the vocation of Yahweh, yet awareness of vocation is not the same thing as Jesus knowing he is God the Son. Wright is often right, but his conclusion does not account for Jesus’s self-identity in the biblical data we have examined, let alone the entire biblical storyline. Jesus views himself as the messianic “son” and the eternal Son who has come to fulfill his Father’s will and to redeem God’s people.

This article is adaped from The Person of Christ: An Introduction by Stephen J. Wellum.

Stephen J. Wellum (PhD, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is professor of Christian theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and editor of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. Stephen and his wife, Karen, have five adult children.

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