The question asked by Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses, Unitarians, and even faithful Christians at times asks is, did Jesus Christ ever explicitly say He was God?

Often they insist that this be a specific wording. They say Jesus MUST say, "I am God" word for word or Jesus must not be God. Before I begin, I must say, first, this is illogical. Let's take for example another doctrine. God is omniscient, meaning He knows everything. Just because God never says the specific word for word phrase, "I am omnipotent" in the Bible or Quran or Book of Mormon or any other Holy book does not mean He isn't omnipotent. He says He knows everything using different wording. Just because God does not use the wording you or I may think He should does not mean He didn't say it.

Second, Jesus Christ actually said that He would be vague about certain things in His ministry like His deity, death, resurrection, and salvation. He said He would use things like parables, symbolism, and generally elusive language so that the truth ones who wanted to know would understand but those who did not want to know would merely be confused. I'm not saying that because you are confused you are a scorner, but if you insist Jesus use clear terms on the level you expect, that is a step in the wrong direction that Jesus said not to take.

Matthew 13:10-14 - And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:

Jesus promised that after He left, the disciples would be filled the Holy Spirit and know exactly how to explain everything in an explicit way by the power of God unlike Jesus Christ. This is true, as we see the epistles and the Gospels say many times explicitly that Jesus is God, the incarnate, to be worshiped, and that salvation is by grace and putting faith in His death for our sins.

John 14:26 - But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

Anyway, keeping this in mind, we can continue. Until one accepts this though, they are purposefully closing their eyes to the fact that Jesus is God and will not be able to see it because they do not want to see it in the way God has chosen to reveal it. Remember, we as humans must go on God's terms, not our terms.

Isaiah 55:8-9 - For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

First, we must ask, what qualifies as someone saying they are something? For example, let's say someone never says word for word, "I am the King of England." BUT He does say, "I am a King. I rule in England. I make laws. I judge the law breakers. I was born into a position of royalty." Let's say then the people that hear him say that then say, "This man thinks he's the King of England. He's crazy!" And then this man never contradicts him. Even if this man never says "I am the King of England" do you think it is kind of obvious that he is claiming to be the King of England? This man claimed to have the titles, character traits, and abilities as the King of England would. This is basically saying he is the King of England. Would you agree?

The same happened with Jesus. Jesus claimed, as stated above, to have the titles, character traits, and abilities as God.

Let's start with titles.

God has many titles. These include the Father, Son of Man, the First and the Last, I AM, the Alpha and Omega, and Savior. All of these at one point of another, Jesus Christ claimed were His title too.

John 8:58 - Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

Matthew 25:31 - When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

John 14:9 - Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?

According to this, Jesus Christ claimed to be the very image of the Father Himself!

Now, perhaps this does not seem to be enough to you. Many people accuse this as "psychological word play," but if a person claims this, they do not know what psychological word play is. Psychological word play is like, "I am hungry" and someone saying, "So you're name is hungry?" Or it's like saying, "I like desserts." (The food) and someone saying "So you like deserts." (The place) An example with Jesus would be like Him saying, "I am the water of life." and then insisting that Jesus is literally water and that all the water on earth is Jesus when it was clear He was using a metaphor and He only referred to Himself this way once in His entire ministry. It is when something is obviously talking about something else but a person twists and turns it to mean something else. That is not what is happening here. Jesus literally calls Himself by the same titles and names as God, so it is not "psychological word play" to assume that Jesus is who He is says He is. If anything, those that deny Jesus is God have to twist and turn His Words to try to explain why He claimed in so many places to have so many of the same names God did. And many of the excuses I hear to try to explain away what Jesus was talking about are very, very weak. Remember, it has to be OBVIOUS that the person is talking about something else, which we do not see here, especially since everyone listening to Him accused Him of claiming to be God.

Second, is character traits. Jesus claimed to have always existed, which no one does but God. He was sinless, which no one but God is.

Luke 5:24 - But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, (he said unto the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house.

John 8:58 - Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

John 10:30 - I and [my] Father are one.

Jesus Christ, interestingly, claimed to be one with the Father. Now, many people in English claim this means many things, but a person who knows Greek will see that the word "one" literally means essence, meaning Jesus and the Father share the same essence, exactly like the Trinity teaches.

Third, there is abilities. He forgave people's sins. He saw the Father, which He said no man had ever done before. He had the ability to call on angels to save Him.

John 8:58-59 - Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.

Matthew 26:53 - Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?

Another thing you will find, is Jesus healed people and did miracles. You will find prophets in the Old Testament always pointing to the Father and refusing to take credit for their miracles, but rather, Jesus Christ accepted glory and even worship when He did miracles.

John 9:35-38 - Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him?And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.

John 5:17-18 - But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

23 - That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him.

Here, Jesus is even literally comparing honoring Him the same as honing God! No other prophet in the Bible has even a fraction the same amount of respect demanded as this.

John 20:28 - And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.

Another thing to note is that unlike Old Testament prophets, you never find Jesus saying, "God says..." or "The Word of the Lord says..." Rather you hear, "I say unto you..." The Bible says He "spoke with authority" and this shocked the people. Rather than saying God gave Him a divine message like the prophets before Him, He spoke as the one who had the authority to tell people what to do on a personal level. He was not a middleman, a messenger, but the final authority on all things.

John 3:35 - The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand.

As you can see, Jesus never said word for word, "I am God," but He didn't need to anymore than Donald Trump needs to verbatim say, "I am the President of the USA." It is so obvious by his actions and speech that you don't need him to say it, and it is the same with Jesus Christ. Even if you think it was too indirect, Jesus said He would point to Himself indirectly so that the scorners would continue scorning and the sincere would embrace it. Now, that method has changed, Jesus now wants all people to repent and makes the Gospel extremely clear in the Bible and by the Holy Spirit, which He promised to do. That is why things only hinted at in the Words of Jesus are made very clear later in the Bible by His disciples. It was not time then to be that clear, but now it is time, because now is the age of grace.

So, let us no longer deny that Jesus Christ claimed to be God. You can say He was wrong. You can say He was a liar. You can say He was wicked, depraved, or insane like the Jewish leaders of the day did (and if He didn't claim to be God, I ask you what these leaders hated Him for and wanted to kill Him for.) But you can not say He did not claim it. That is to say Donald Trump never claimed to be President, which we all know is not true.

Also, I know there will be comments saying, "But Jesus said the Father is greater than I..." or "But Jesus prayed to God." Those are good questions if asked sincerely, and I will, Lord willing, address these at a later date. But not in this article. This one is already quite long and is about the topic of Jesus claiming to be God. There is a clear explanation for these questions in the Bible. I promise.

I recommend reading the book of John if you want to learn more about this topic. It exists to prove Jesus Christ is God and to believe on Him. I also recommend Romans and the other Gospels for anyone wanting to learn about Christianity. I would start in John though.