56 Many testified falsely against him, but their statements did not agree. 57 Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: 58 "We heard him say, 'I will destroy this man-made temple and in three days will build another, not made by man.'" 59 Yet even then their testimony did not agree. 60 Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, "Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?" 61 But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?"
62 "I am," said Jesus. "And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."
63 The high priest tore his clothes. "Why do we need any more witnesses?" he asked. 64 "You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?" They all condemned him as worthy of death. 65 Then some began to spit at him; they blindfolded him, struck him with their fists, and said, "Prophesy!" And the guards took him and beat him. Mark 14:56-65
A Jewish in-law frequently told me that nowhere in the Bible did Jesus ever explicity claim to be God. Not only is he wrong but when one reads the Gospels objectively it’s impossible to miss that Jesus on numerous occasions identified himself completely with God. Indeed it is exactly this that created so much opposition to Him and ultimately got him crucified. Jesus claiming to be God was a threat both to the religious leaders and to Rome.
Nowhere in scripture is Jesus claim more explicit than in verse 62. Jesus simply says, “I am” when asked if he were the Christ, the Messiah. And in case there some who did not associate the Messiah with Deity, Jesus goes on to apply to Himself Daniel 7 (Son of Man) and Psalm 110 (sitting at the right hand of God), both passages identified with God Himself.
Since it is clear that Jesus did claim to be God, then the following reasoning applies.
A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said
would not be a great moral teacher… You must make your choice.
Either this man was, and is the Son of God, or else a madman or
something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him
and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord
and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His
being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did
not intend to. (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)
Do you call Jesus a great human teacher or do you call Him Lord?
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