are then the Son of God?” (v. 70). The second question indicates that the first question is the same as the concluding one.44 There is nothing in the second question that sets it apart from the first.
The Meaning of Psalm 110:1
First, I would say that neither this passage, nor any others that Irons might have listed, is given to prove a negative, or as worded by Irons, to “exhaust” his identity. Psalm 110:1 is quoted or alluded to in the New Testament more often than any other passage from the Hebrew Scriptures. Irons crafts an answer to Jesus’ question to the Pharisees posed in Matthew’s version: “If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” Let’s look at the passage:
Jehovah saith unto my Lord, “Sit thou at my right hand,
Until I make thine enemies thy footstool” (ASV).
What is David doing in writing Ps 110:1? First of all he is pointing out that Jehovah is addressing one who prophetically was the psalmist’s (Jesus says David’s) lord. Jesus’ question is this:
How is David’s lord also David’s son?
Irons does not do this, but others have tried to suggest that the first Lord, Jehovah, is speaking also to a second one who is also Jehovah designated in this second place as Adonai. Actually, the second referent is the Hebrew Adoni or “my” (Heb. i) “lord” (Heb. adon), translated “my lord.” The point was that whoever the Messiah might be, he was David’s superior/lord, an idea that would have stumped the Jewish leaders who would not have expected the Messiah, a descendant of David, to be greater than David. Irons’s observation introduces a new figure into the equation of that particular discussion, namely, “Son of God” who must mean more than “son of David.” The point actually is “son of David” is not as important as his descendant who is David’s “lord.”
Jesus’ Calling God His “Father”
We get some more statistics in a footnote as Irons advises us that Jesus refers to God as his Father about fifty times, plus nineteen direct addresses as Father. There are about seventeen references in the epistles in which God is called “our Father.” Does that mathematical reality mean that our relationship with God is lacking as compared with that of Jesus? Should we negate any significance of Jesus’ reference to God as “Abba” in Scripture only once (Mark 14:36) since we can claim two epistolary references in which Christians address God as “Abba Father” (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6)? Why does our calling God “Abba” mean we do not share an intimacy with God? What is it about Jesus calling God “Abba” that means he is the only one with a “unique relationship to God”? Christians are God’s sons and daughters (John 1:12), but does our ability to call God “Abba” mean absolutely nothing as regards a unique relationship with God as, say, those who do not share citizenship as his people? Is it not true that all believers “have access to the Father by one Spirit” (Eph 2:18)? Christ’s mediating of our filial relationship as brothers and sisters to the one Father does not mean that our relationship with him is nothing. And drawing the conclusion that Jesus was “making himself equal with God” because he was “calling God his own Father” is clearly a specious argument created by the Jewish leaders in John 5:18. They themselves said, “The only Father we have is God himself” (John 8:41).
Jesus’ claim that God was his Father was misunderstood by the Jewish leaders, especially inasmuch as they inferred that he was claiming equality with God. Jesus went on later to finally address this misapprehension in John 10:30–33 pointing out that if they were hearing his claim to oneness with God to mean equality with God, they were sorely mistaken. He went so far as to address the misunderstanding taking it as far as it would go: He was willing to address their misconception that he was claiming to be equal to Almighty God. He argues, in fact, that were he even to claim to be theos (“god”), the designation would be no more inappropriate than the leaders of Israel being called theoi (“gods”), as in Ps 82:6 when God himself calls the judges of Israel “gods”—men who could even be called sons of God.45 And as we will see infra, while the Jewish leaders did attempt to try Jesus for claiming Messianic authority once they had him in their kangaroo court, they never again brought up the claim that he was equal with God after this, Jesus’ clear explanation and exegesis.
The Jewish Charge of Blasphemy
Irons seems to be incredulous that Jesus’ admission that he was the Son of God was an equivalent designation for Messiah for he believes claiming to be Messiah would not have caused the Jewish leaders to elicit the charge of blasphemy. He points out several passages of Scripture where a perceived claim to being equal with God was deemed to be a claim to equality with God deserving of death:
a. John 5:18—Note that the verse claims that Jesus was continually “breaking the Sabbath.” Jesus claimed that in healing the lame man at the Bethesda Pool, he was joining his Father in his continuing work. Some would see this as claiming a special exemption from keeping the Sabbath. But Jesus had already indicated that if it were good to act mercifully on behalf of an animal in misfortune on the Sabbath, then surely it was good to do the same for people. Thus it was “lawful to do good on the Sabbath” (Matt 12:12). The Jews had misunderstood God’s will regarding the Sabbath. By implication they were also wrong in assigning to him a claim to be equal with God.
b. John 8:58—I was puzzled at Irons’s mention of this verse. He lists it as evidence that Jesus was blaspheming. He does not, however, identify the blasphemy; he only quotes that Jesus claimed to be “[before] Abraham,” and gives the report that “they picked up stones to throw at him.” Perhaps Irons is leaving open the possibility of understanding egō eimi in the passage as meaning “I have been.” The translators of the NASB (1971) list as legitimate the alternate reading, “before Abraham came into being I have been.” This is very much like the Greek reading from the beginning of the testament of Job, which I mention in my opening presentation. The Greek here is remarkably essentially similar to the pseudepigraphal T. Job 2:1: “For I have been Jobab [Egō gar eimi Iōbab] before the Lord named me Job [prin ē onomasai me ho Kyrios Iōb].” That this text would say that Jesus preexisted Abraham does not, however, suggest that Jesus was equal to God. The created angels preexisted Abraham, and are even called “sons of God” (Job 1:6; 2:1; 1 Kgs 22:19–22; Ps 148:2, 5).
c. John 10:30–36—Here, I am keying in on Irons’s emphasis on verse 36 where Jesus asks his accusers if they are stoning him because he said he was God’s Son. Andreas Köstenberger has suggested that Jesus is using a qal wahomer rabbinic argument made from the lesser to the greater. Köstenberger writes: “Jesus’ point is that if Israel can in some sense be called ‘god’ in the Scriptures, how much more appropriate this designation is for him, ‘whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world’ and who truly is the Son of God.”46 Perhaps that is Irons’s point. But it isn’t a definite point. He is not arguing what the Son of God is.
d. John 19:7—The Jewish leaders argue that Jesus ought to die because he claimed to be the Son of God. Were they offended because it was Jesus who was making this claim? Was it because the claim was made at all? Or was it that the claim was that the association was being made with being God’s Son? And why was one of these (or something else) a problem? Irons doesn’t tell us.
e. Matt 9:3—Irons points out that blasphemy was assigned to Jesus because he claimed to do something that only God could do—forgive sins. But he fails to point out in the argument here that Matt 9:8 demonstrates, first, that the people marveled because such authority had been given. Irons has already admitted that Jesus was both human and divine while on the earth. While his alleged divine identity would have been masked from the people, the Father would not have been confused that the one who shared in his nature
