Is Jesus God? What did Jesus Think?

Anyone who has examined the Gospels searching for how Jesus understood himself or for clues that he thought he was God, as we affirm in our creeds and is standard belief, knows that the Gospel texts are not as cooperative as we sometimes think. But there are clues that must be considered, especially the old line that anyone who thought of themselves as Jesus did is either off the map or genuinely did see himself in extraordinary, divine terms.

But this whole theme has been served a very significant treatment now in the published dissertation of Sigurd Grindheim, and I’m encouraging anyone who can do such a thing to write to their library (theological) and urge the immediate purchase of this new outstanding book: God’s Equal: What Can We Know About Jesus’ Self-Understanding? (Library Of New Testament Studies). Yes, it’s expensive; yes, libraries are the place for such a book.

I hope eventually a more affordable version of this excellent piece will be available. Here’s what Grindheim does:

His contention is that Jesus made himself “God’s equal.”
He examines God’s kingdom, the miracles of Jesus, Jesus and forgiveness, Jesus as eschatological judge, Jesus and the law, Jesus’ relationship to his followers, Jesus’ metaphorical self-descriptions, mediatory figures in Second Temple Judaism, Jesus as unique Son who is both subordinate and equal, Jesus as Son of Man and Jesus as new temple.

“The Jesus who emerges then is a Jesus who said and did only what God could say and do.”