god loves man, loves man not god.

I wanted someone with a much more intimate knowledge of the New Testament than I have to give me a simple answer. However, I've just done a little searching and found....just as I feared a morass of conflicting claims, counter claims and interpretations.

And of course each claim is correct and each counter claim correct and every interpretation is THE ONLY interpretation....I was going to say it was childish, but infantile is a better description.

Just a few examples of what I mean:-

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In Mark chapter 1 verses 10-11 records how Jesus heard a voice from heaven saying "You are my much-loved son. I am very pleased with you." Jesus himself must have told his followers this (since no-one else heard the voice). This implies that he believed he was the Son of God.

In Mark chapter 8 verse 31 Jesus calls himself the "Son of Man". This is a title that is used more than 80 times in Matthew/Mark/Luke/John, and is never applied to anyone except Jesus himself.

In Mark chapter 4 verses 35-41, Jesus stopped a storm. This is an implied claim to be God. In the Jewish scriptures, it was only God who could stop storms

In Mark chapter 13 verse 32, Jesus is talking about the end of the world, and he says no-one knows when it will be, not even the Son of God. Clearly he is talking about himself.

In Mark chapter 14 verse 61-2, Jesus is on trial in front of the Jewish leaders. They ask him, "are you the Son of God?" He replies "I am."

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In my book none of the above qualify as Jesus saying "I am the Son of God". The last gets closest, but even here he only says "I am". How can we be sure that was the question to which he was answering?

In Jesus's day it was unlawful even to pronounce the name of God. So I would have thought it would be considered highly blashphemous to claim to be God's Son.

Dont spend time on my account going through the entire New Testament MA but if you can point to one example of Jesus saying "I am the Son of God" I would like to know it.

Really zero?

of course he doesnt have to use the exact phrase "I am the Son of God"

I am God's/Jehovah's/Yaweh's/ son/child/offspring etc

would do. Anything where he makes it clear he is unlike others, the special child of God, as opposed to saying "I am one of Gods children, as are we all" or words to that effect.

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Are you sure you are sticking with zero?

http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/words/s/1127844452-8688.html#below

thanks Frank

Still couldnt find Jesus using that phrase about himself, though.

MA Sure its a deal, dont want you burning the midnight oil on my behalf though!

Curiouser and curiouser said Alice. So Jesus never claimed to be divine? So how come Christianity is founded on the premise that God sent his Son to die for our sins?

Well I'm not trying to play tricks or anything MA

It started with your tagline from John 3.16.

That is one sentence, and all i am trying to do is look at it logically.

Personally I dont think Jesus the man was anything like the image of Jesus we are given from childhood. That is not to say all men perhaps have a spark of the divine in them, but that is irrelevant to my analysis.

First we must accept the existence of God...For the purposes of this argument thats a given.

Then God "So loved the world". Well ok. Again for the sake of argument. (There is a mighty big assumption here. Many people have come to quite different conclusions about the character of God)

He gave his only begotten son etc.

So at the root of it is that God gave to man the thing that is most precious to Him, i.e. the life of his own Son, so that man can be saved (if he believes).

Any normal person would have to be impressed with an idea that was so important that someone (in this case God) was willing to give the life of his own child for it.

But perhaps less so if the "son" was no relation. Or if the sacrifice was a goat, or just some money in a tin.

The affect is lost if the Father Son relation is missing. And yet apparantly nowhere do we have Jesus claiming to be divine.

(Thats not to say you cant believe in him as divine, thats religion, I'm just trying to look at the actual words and trying to draw some conclusions).

So what do I conclude? Just that its strange that the central tenet of Christianity..the divinity of Christ...is not more forcibly established in the Bible. Other people say he was divine, then others elaborate on that. But if you just look at what Jesus actually claimed for himself it appears to be a different story.

Now, as a Christian, I don't rely fully on logic.

The affect is lost if the Father Son relation is missing. And yet apparantly nowhere do we have Jesus claiming to be divine.