Who is Jesus Christ?

The Gospel portrait of Jesus raises the question of his identity. It also answers it.

In John 8:25, the Jews say to Jesus ‘Who are you’? In Luke 5:21, Jesus’ action of forgiving sins prompts the question from the Pharisees, ‘Who is this man talking blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ The same question is repeated in similar circumstances later (Luke 7:49). Jesus himself poses the question about his identity to his disciples: ‘Who do the crowds say I am?’ (Luke 9:18; Matthew 16:13, Mark 6:30). And when they give him a variety of answers, he presses home the question to them: ‘But you, who do you say I am’?

The Gospel record of Jesus’ preaching and actions point to the presence of someone who went beyond the normal categories of a rabbi or a prophet. Unlike rabbis he taught as one having an authority that did not simply derive from learning and which was not merely restricted to interpreting the Law (cf Matthew 7:9). Instead he clearly claimed an authority that came from God. It enabled him to go to the heart of the Law and make statements that appeared even to nullify parts of it (cf Matthew 5:32–33).

His authority was more along the lines of that claimed by prophets. But even there he broke the normal category of prophet. A sign of this is that he never seems to have uttered the prophetic phrase ‘thus says the Lord God’ or ‘hear the Word of the Lord’. The prophets saw themselves as bringing messages from God to the people. Jesus does not present himself as someone who waits for messages from God to convey to people (as for example Jeremiah had to do – cf. Jeremiah 42:1–7). Instead he gives the impression of being God's spokesman in a permanent fashion, so that whatever he says or does always has the approval of God. Later reflection would point out that he never acted as though he brought God's Word to people precisely because he was that Word made flesh (cf. the prologue to John's Gospel). But, of course, the greatest indication that he was more than a prophet was his claim to a unique intimacy with God.