Transcription
Is this is a huge one. This is how a lot of people think that, uh, we're Gods. We're Divine. And hopefully, it'll be as simplistic to break down. We have John 10, uh, John chapter 10:34-35. And there's a lot more to the passage, but I'll read it. Uh, Jesus answered them. He's talking to the Pharisees because they're bickering together with him. "Is it not written in your law, 'I have said, ye are gods'?" And it goes down basically, you know, to more. But people will take that little scripture and, of course, this is self-explanatory. This is basically Jesus saying we're enlightened, we're Divine. So what is the biblical view of this passage?
Okay, so this one actually gets it. It genuinely gets complicated. This is a, a passage that is easily becomes complicated. I'll just put it that way. And to do like a full teaching on it, it would take like an hour. So I will say this. Um, a lot of people will take weird, unbiblical beliefs and they'll try to shoehorn them into tough passages. So you get to a passage and you go, "Well, that's a difficult passage. I wonder what it means." And then they'll come and they'll cram doctrines that are totally unbiblical. And it becomes hard to fight because you just find this to be a challenging passage. So you, you don't think it means what they think, but you're trying to figure out what it means, you know?
Um, so let me give you like the short summary. Hopefully, it'll help and you can ask questions. Yeah. Jesus is actually quoting Psalm 82 in John 10. He quot, he's quoting Psalm 82. So we need to look at Psalm 82 and ask, what is this about? So I'm going to give you a summary of Psalm 82, then we're going to read it because it's very short. It's only eight verses. So here's the summary. Um, the leaders of governments or nations or cities, they're being rebuked in Psalm 82 for ruling unjustly. That's the, the leaders of either governments, nations, or cities. They're being rebuked for judging or ruling unjustly and for not protecting the weak and the fatherless.
Um, I, I think that in Psalm 82 is referring to human rulers because, and I'll give you more support. Here's the biblical context. Right in Exodus, when people would go to the rulers, it's said that they're going to God. So they would have a problem and it says, "Go to God." But the people, they're going to are the rulers. And that's the same word referenced in Psalm 82. It's Elohim. Elohim is a much more flexible word in Hebrew than, than the word "God" in English. So it's a little clumsy when we try to use the term, uh, you know, across the languages. But that's where it gets into a long explanation. So yeah.
Um, also, if you ask like, why do, why is it said to be going to God when I'm going to rulers of the people of God? Well, the answer is in Romans 13. It's because their authority represents God. Romans 13 tells us that governmental power comes from God, and they are there as God's representatives or God's ministers to basically help. I mean, God cares about society, and any authority that anyone has in society ultimately comes from God. Okay. So we can see the connection between human rulers and God, not in identity, but because of authority. They're borrowing from God as they're ruling over other people, put it that way.
So let me read the Psalm 82 to us and, uh, point out what it means in context, and then we'll see how, why Jesus used it that way. So Psalm 82. It says, "A Psalm of Asaph. God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment. How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?" Now, he's, he's rebuking these rulers, these people that are ruling over others. He says, "How long you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute; rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked."
So there, there's this rebuke. You're not taking care of the needy. You're not, you're not using your power to take care of those who have no power. That's the idea. Government's out of balance, as it usually is, it seems. Right. And then, um, as he goes on in verse five, he says about these rulers, about these things he calls gods in this text, "They neither, they have neither knowledge nor understanding. They walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the Earth are shaken." So they're basically, they're stupid rulers, like they don't get their job and they're not doing it right. And so God then now he casts judgment on them. Now here's what's gonna happen. He says, "I said, 'You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, like men you shall die and fall like any prince.'"
Then it con, so he's gonna, he's going to destroy them. Then in verse eight, he concludes the whole Psalm by saying, "Arise, O God, judge the Earth, for you shall inherit all the nations." So to summarize Psalm 82, there's these rulers that are unjust. God's going to destroy them. And then in verse eight, he's going to take over the nations himself.
When Jesus uses it, the one thing to understand is this is not a comparison, it's a contrast. And that one key really helps us with this. It's like a, "how much more" thing. Hey, if this can be said of human rulers, how much more can it be said of God who comes in in human form? Um, and the difference in the psalm is, or in, in the passage in John 10, Jesus, he makes a contrast between these "ye are Gods" people and himself. He says of the "ye are Gods," they're the ones to whom the word of God came. So they're on Earth, the word of God comes to them. But in verse 36, he says, "Do you know he speaks of himself as the one whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world." So they're on the Earth, the word of God comes to them. Jesus, he comes from Heaven, is sent into the world. And he says, "Hey, if the word of God came to them and they could be in any sense called gods, how much more, how much more can the one who comes from Heaven be called, you know, call himself God?" Even he's contrasting, look at, look at how much greater I am than all of these things.
So Jesus is uniquely different. In John, we see this. He's, he's the one who's with God and he is God, equal with God. In John five, he's the creator of all things. In John one, in the, in John 10, the same passage, he's in the Father and the Father is in him. In John eight, he calls himself the "I AM." Yep. Like, so he's clearly God. And what I love about Psalm 82 is that this, um, the last verse, after rebuking these rulers, I said, "You are gods that you're going to die." It says that God's going to arise and he's going to judge the Earth, and God will inherit the nations. That's Jesus's role. He's the inheritor of all nations. He's the King of Kings, Lord of Lords. Yeah, he inherits all things. So in Psalm 82:8, God will inherit all things, and Jesus is going to be the one who inherits all things. So this is actually implying the deity of Christ, even.
But the, here's the key. Um, oh, I should mention one thing before. Some people don't interpret these as human rulers. Yeah, they interpret it as being angelic beings or like, um, spiritual forces, powerful forces that are sort of behind the human rulers, behind the nations. And that's, that's fine. It doesn't change the fact that Jesus is doing this contrast. He's saying, "I'm greater than those things." That's the point. But so in no case, under no interpretation, does it make us gods. No interpretation doesn't make us gods. That's the point. Is yeah, under no interpretation am I now some sort of deity type thing. That was Satan's lie in the garden. "Oh, you will be like God." That was Satan's other lie. He told himself. We read about in Isaiah where he says, "I will be like God." No matter how you define it, it doesn't mean what people are saying that it means in the New Age. Yeah, because the people who would disagree would be like, "Mike, those aren't human rulers." That's the majority position. But there are those who would disagree. And with that position, they would stand locked arm with me and fully agree. He ain't calling people gods. Like that's not on the table as an option for this passage.
If you look at the rest of the text of scripture, um, we can see Jesus is, there's only one God. There's no one like him. The scripture says there's no one like him. And Jesus comes and he's, he's that one God who's with us, you know, he's, he's God the Son. Um, but there's, there's indeed no idea that humans are like God, right? That was the original lie. That was why the Pharisees, when Jesus claimed to be equal with God, they tried to kill Jesus. They tried to pick up stones and kill him because the only options in the Jewish mind are either you're God or you've blasphemed. So I would say those are still the only two options for those who say we're little gods, right? Yeah. Either you really are God, or you're blasphemy. The scripture shows you're not God, so you're, you're definitely blasphemy.