Some
of the most obvious considerations, when thinking about the supremacy of
Christ, are the claims He made about Himself.
Other teachers said they were telling the truth. Christ said, "I ... am the truth"
(John 14:6). Other teachers asked people
to follow their teachings. Christ asked
people to follow Him. More than twenty
times in the Gospels Jesus spoke about the need to follow Him. The other great leaders taught people to
worship God… Jesus accepted the worship of Thomas (John 20:28). Jesus made statements that clearly implied
that He was God, and some of His hearers were so scandalized by these remarks
that twice they wanted to stone Him for blasphemy (John 8:54-59; 10:30, 31).
Seven
"I am" statements appear in John's Gospel, showing that Christ
claimed to be the source of eternal life.
He said, "I am the bread of life" (6:35); "I am the light
of the world" (8:12); "I am the gate" (10:7, 9); "I am the
good shepherd" (10:11); "I am the resurrection and the life"
(11:25); "I am the way and the truth and the life" (14:6); "I am
the true vine" (15:1). Leon Morris
reminds us that "in each case the Greek form of 'I am' is
emphatic." Each saying includes the
personal pronoun "I."
"There is no need to include the personal pronoun unless emphasis
is required." Morris concludes that
to Jewish ears, the words I am
"aroused associations of the divine."
These and other statements of Christ make us agree with J. T. Seamands'
statement that the uniqueness of Christ "is not something we concede to Christ, but something He confronts us with."
--
Ajith Fernando in The Christian's Attitude Toward World Religions
#3614
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