October 25, 2015           John 10:30-39 / Psalm 82

Download discussion questions:  John 10_30-39; Psalm 82 you are gods

Last week’s passage ended with Jesus responding to the Jews by quoting a line from a psalm.  This week we explore the meaning of the psalm and how Jesus used it.

Everyone in our discussion group agreed on the pattern John has recorded for the last several chapters:  questions from the Jews (sometimes specified as chief priests, Pharisees, etc.) followed by a response (not necessarily an answer) from Jesus, and then outrage (usually accompanied by stones) from the Jews.  Statements like, “Before Abraham was, I AM” (8:58) and “I and the Father are one” (10:30) were His uncompromising statements that He surely knew would elicit a strong response.

This time, as they picked up stones, Jesus challenged them to tell why they were ready to execute Him, what had He done?  In particular, which of His works had upset them?  It would seem obvious that Jesus knew the real problem was not His actions but His words, the intimacy He claimed with God the Father.  His question must have had another motive, perhaps to force them to put words to their visceral response.  And they did, charging that “You make yourself out to be God” (v. 33).  Note that there was no misunderstanding on their part, and no miscommunication on Jesus part.  They knew exactly the impact of His statement even though He never said exactly the words they attributed to Him.  Modern day claims that Jesus was a simple teacher who the church later deified fall apart here and at many other places in the Gospel of John and elsewhere in Scripture.  Jesus was asserting His deity and the Jews understood Him precisely.

His response has puzzled me (and perhaps a few others) for a long time.  Against the accusation of blasphemous claims to being God, He quotes Psalm 82, “I said, you are gods” and challenges them to distinguish between what they say they believe from their Scripture and what He is saying.  Remember, Hebrew and Greek usually did not use upper case letters (as English does) to distinguish between, for example, “God” and “gods.”  Plus, this is an oral exchange between Jesus and the Jews, so the spoken words would also be the same.

Although we usually avoid cross-references in our inductive study, this would be an appropriate exception.  In order to understand what Jesus meant and how the Jews understood Him, we need to understand more about Psalm 82.

The psalmist uses the word “god” (elohim, אֱ‍ֽלֹהִ֗ים ) four times in this short poem.  All four instances are exactly the same word.  At the end of verse 1, the word “rulers” (NASB) or “judges” (TLB, MSG) or “heavenly beings” (NLT) are translators’ glosses or explanations for elohim in that unusual usage.  The plural form is used of God as well as gods throughout the Old Testament, the meaning determined by the context, as in verse 1 of this psalm.

So what did the psalmist (later quoted by Jesus) mean?  Rather than trying to interpret a single verse (seldom a good idea) our group spent about half our time together looking at the entire psalm.

Several groups are mentioned in the psalm:  rulers (lit., elohim), the wicked (twice), and a number of seemingly related classes – the weak, fatherless, afflicted, destitute, weak (again) and needy.  Our group considered several ways to describe this mixture:  helpless, disenfranchised, oppressed.  The emphasis of the psalmist is on the injustice of the judgment between the wicked and the composite group of the helpless.  In fact, the “wicked” are mentioned before and after the list of the oppressed.  We discussed the fact that unlike English poetry, Hebrew poetry (like the psalms) does not depend on rhyme or rhythm or meter – none of those would translate well to any other language.  In His providence, God chose to use Hebrew poetry that is based on word pictures and structure that can translate into any language.  In this case, it may be that the use of “wicked” in verses 2 and 4b form a picture of the way they surround and oppress the helpless (verses 3 and 4a).

The point of the line in question, “You are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High” seems to be the dignity and worth of every person because each one bears the image of God as a son of the Most High.  A person’s station in life, whether a ruler or the destitute has no effect on that status.  Judgment in favor of one group or individual over others of lower social or economic prestige is an affront to the God whose image they bear.  And yet in spite of this eminent condition, the rulers and the destitute (and all in between) share something else in common:  “you will all die like men.”  Regardless of prominence, we all come to a similar end.

So what was Jesus saying when He used an intriguing line from this psalm to respond to the Jews who were ready to stone Him for blasphemy?  How does the idea that “all are gods” relate to His claim that “I am God”?

The first mistake to avoid is to conflate the two uses of elohim in the psalm.  Even without the useful uppercase distinction, “God in the midst of the gods” (Psalm 82:1) shows a distinction.  Some heretical cults ignore the distinction, or make the difference one of degree, claiming that we all will achieve the same status as Jesus.  He was just the first to achieve status as God, and through various means we will all achieve that same deity.  Anathema on that lie!

Perhaps the most helpful part of our discussion was the reminder that most of Jesus’ Jewish audience was much more familiar with their Scriptures than we are.  The brief quotation Jesus used would most likely have brought to mind the entire psalm in the minds of His hearers.  The psalm is about justice and judging (various words used many times in the psalm), and they were judging Him unjustly.  The psalm elevates the oppressed and the disenfranchised, who they despised (remember John 9:34) but Jesus came to seek and to save (Luke 19:10).  A crucial distinction is from Psalm 82:6, “you will die” in spite of their status as sons of the Most High.  Jesus was prompting them to remember the psalm, to recognize that even those with the status of gods would die, but His status, as the unique, only-begotten Son, was the One who came to give life (John 10:10).

Whatever His audience thought of from the psalm when Jesus quoted that verse, He certainly seems to be challenging them to reconsider their understanding of God.  Yes, God is “the Most High” and is holy and transcendent.  He is the eternal, uncreated Creator and Ruler and Judge.  But when the inspired Scripture uses the same word, elohim, to describe humans the Jews should have recognized Jesus’ clue that they needed to reexamine their rigid conception of what God might really be like.  Their uncompromising loyalty to the One God had become an intransigent self-confidence that they had nothing more to learn about an infinite Deity.

Jesus was not trying to trick or distract the Jews with an obscure reference that would confuse them.  He was continuing the same message that John recorded for several chapters, to challenge the Jews to rethink their limited understanding of who God is and what the Messiah would do.  Their idea of God has been so limited by their rigid interpretation of His Law that they refused to even listen to Jesus.  And once again, even when He used different words to express His central message, they reacted badly.  He followed His challenge from Psalm 82 (“you are all gods”) with a concession:  “If you do not believe Me, believe the works [of the Father that I am doing].”  Why?  What did the works point to?  “That the Father is in Me, and I in the Father” (John 10:38).  He continues to return to that theme in His desire that at least some of them would begin to listen and to understand that God is not limited to their limited idea of Him.