Jesus versus the gods
John 10:22–42 The God over every god is the one holding on to you.
None Can Separate
John 10:22–42 — The God over every god is the one holding on to you.
“God Manifest, Bringer of Victory”
Our scene opens with a man named Antiochus IV Epiphanes. A pagan king, roughly two centuries before Jesus’ ministry, attacked Jerusalem and defiled God’s holy temple. The coins minted by his regime tell you a lot about this king: his portrait is on one side; on the back is the inscription, Of King Antiochus, God Manifest, Bringer of Victory.
He thought he was a god and acted accordingly. After ruining the temple, Antiochus forced the Jewish people to abandon their God and adopt pagan worship. The books called the Maccabees record account after account of Jewish martyrs who stood up to Antiochus at the cost of their lives.
Then Judah Maccabee led a revolt and won. He drove the Greeks out of the land, Israel was independent again for about a hundred years, and, most importantly, the temple was cleansed and rededicated. Today we know that celebration as Hanukkah. You may know the story of the oil that lasted eight days, but that’s only one miracle within the larger story of liberation that the Jewish people still celebrate every winter.
In the Bible, it’s called the Feast of Dedication, and it’s the background to Jesus’ encounter in John 10.
Jesus at Hanukkah
It’s not commonly known, but yes, Jesus celebrated Hanukkah; of course, as he does frequently, this too becomes an occasion to point to his own identity and calling:
At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the colonnade of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
— John 10:22–24 (ESV)
While everyone is celebrating the victory over a would-be god, they look at Jesus and say, in effect, You’re acting a little like Antiochus. You can feel the fear and anxiety behind it. Is this just another leader going around claiming to be God?
Of course, it’s radically different.
Antiochus was a man who pretended to be God. Jesus is God who actually took on our humanity and walked among us.
“You, Being a Man, Make Yourself God”
Jesus answers their demand with the image he’s been building all chapter, the good shepherd:
Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
— John 10:25–30 (ESV)
Notice that this very clear declaration of his divinity comes in the middle of a promise about keeping his sheep safe. But the leaders don’t seem to care about the first part. They latch on to the last line.
The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”
— John 10:31–33 (ESV)
You’re only a man, claiming to be divine. That’s the big problem. And if Jesus is just a good moral teacher, a human being walking around claiming to be God, that would be pretty serious.
To this, Jesus gives a rather cryptic and perplexing reply:
Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken—do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” Again they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands.
— John 10:34–39 (ESV)
He’s quoting Psalm 82. And the gist of his argument seems to be: If this group can be called gods, why can’t you call me God?
Sit with that for a moment, because it is a little strange. Wait. Gods?
Hey Dad, Aren’t We Monotheists?
I was talking about this passage with my daughter Penny, and one of her first reactions was, “Hold on, I thought we were monotheists. What’s the Bible doing talking about all these gods?”
It’s the right question. Every once in a while, you come across a passage of Scripture that uses words in ways you’re not used to. I didn’t know the Bible talks like this. What is going on with all of these gods?
To my daughter and the rest, yes, the Bible is thoroughly monotheistic. God is the only Creator, the only eternal one, the only sustainer.
But the Bible keeps revealing to us that there’s a whole spiritual world out there. The physical world isn’t all there is. God is the Creator of everything we can see and touch, and he’s also the Creator of the spiritual realm. He alone is eternal, but there are others: angels, demons, seraphim. The Hebrew Bible uses the term elohim or the sons of elohim for some of these divine beings.
Where it gets complicated is that the Hebrew term Elohim often refers to the one Creator God, but the same term can also refer to these lesser spiritual beings. Psalm 82 describes God (Elohim) rendering judgment against the gods (elohim).
Who Are These So-Called Gods?
There’s a ubiquitous interpretation across Christian and secular scholarship that says the “gods” in Psalm 82 aren’t divine beings at all. One tradition, a later Jewish midrash, says that these refer to the Israelites who received the Law at Mount Sinai; others see the kings and rulers of the earth in view. Humans who have the title elohim. This psalm is a moment when God brings judgment down on these men.
In that interpretation, Jesus is saying something like, There are human beings you call gods, and I’m so much greater than them.
It’s possible. But it never sat well with me, because that reading actually undermines Jesus’ claim. If the Pharisees say, You’re claiming to be God; that’s blasphemy, and his answer is, Well, you call this group of humans gods, so why can’t I have the title too?, that undercuts his divinity. I recently watched a clip of Alex O’Connor, a prominent young atheist, detailing this very stance. He claims that Jesus of Nazareth never claimed to be God, and that later Christians have simply misunderstood him. John 10 was Alex’s Exhibit A.
I’m convinced Jesus’ answer is much stronger than this.
God in the Divine Council
(I’m indebted to the late Michael Heiser for much of what follows. Pick up his The Unseen Realm or Angels for a deeper understanding.)
Psalm 82 begins like this:
God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment: “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?”
— Psalm 82:1–2 (ESV)
God continues to rebuke this group called the gods. Then, in verse 6:
I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.” Arise, O God, judge the earth; for you shall inherit all the nations!
— Psalm 82:6–8 (ESV)
Right there, I think, is the proof that this isn’t talking about human beings. If it were, it would say, You’re going to die because you’re all men. Instead, it says, like men you shall die.
To understand this divine council, we need to turn to Deuteronomy 32:
When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.
— Deuteronomy 32:8–9 (ESV)
Here’s what seems to be happening: God looks out at all the nations and assigns one of these spiritual beings to oversee and influence each of them. There are people on the ground who still have responsibility for their actions, and there is a spiritual reality over the nations. Significantly, God assigns each nation one of these divine beings, but then the text shifts to his personal name, Yahweh, when God takes direct charge of his people, Israel.
Textual variant: traditional Hebrew manuscripts had “sons of Israel,” but the more probable original reading is “sons of God,” supported by Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts and the ancient Greek Septuagint translation — many modern translations reflect this.
Today, we don’t usually assign a personality to this spiritual idea, but we still talk like it exists. We might refer to “the spirit of the age,” or “culture” in a way akin to the ancient worldview. And so our modern theologians might say, It seems like the culture of America is moving in this direction. The difference in the Bible is that these are not abstract forces, but entities created and assigned by the Creator.
In the ancient world, when nations fought one another, people saw a double battle: one on the ground and one in the heavens. You see it in the Iliad. It isn’t just the Greeks and the Trojans; the gods themselves are battling it out.
You see it in the Bible, too, in books like Daniel. Daniel is praying about the fate of his people in exile, and in chapter 10, he’s visited by a magnificent figure, clearly a divine messenger, who tells Daniel:
“Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia, and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days.”
— Daniel 10:12–14 (ESV)
This “prince of Persia” is not the human king of Persia. It’s a spiritual being, an elohim, set over Persia. Michael, later identified as an archangel (Jude 9), shows up to oppose this being. As humans strive with humans on earth, there’s a spiritual battle going on in the heavenly realm. This dual understanding of heavenly/earthly conflict is a major theme in the book of Revelation.
Why Would God Do It This Way?
God didn’t have to do it this way. He is still sovereign over all the nations, still in control. So why would he create a divine council at all?
One analogy that helps me: in America, the president appoints a cabinet. Cabinet members don’t have authority in themselves; they serve at the pleasure of the president. But they’re tasked with managing parts of the government. In some ways, it seems God works like that. He is the head of all. He alone is Creator; everything else is created. But he has assigned these spiritual beings to carry out his will on the earth.
The way the divine council should have operated, then, is that all the nations would be influenced to worship God alone. They would be influenced to follow God’s will and to practice justice and mercy, to get rid of the oppression of others, and to care for the poor. But as the nations fell away from God’s will, it seems the spiritual powers behind them fell away, too.
Most of the Bible deals with God judging humans and calling us to account. Once in a while, we get a glimpse of this spiritual reality, and Psalm 82 is one of those glimpses. God unveils it and says, I’m going to judge these spirits too. Every spirit that walked away from me is under my judgment and under my command. You were gods. You were meant to lead the people to worship the one true God alone, but you led them astray. So now I’m going to execute judgment against you. And like men, you’re all going to die.
Gods, Angels, or Demons?
I know that for many Christians, it’s going to be the mere title “gods” that makes us uncomfortable. Part of it is simple semantics — the ancient Hebrew language operates differently from ours. But the apostle Paul gives us a way to approach this strange world of the Bible in 1 Corinthians 10, where he’s addressing the worship of the Greek gods in the temples around Corinth.
On one hand, he says, the gods of the temples are nothing. They’re just wood and stone, with no life in them. On the other hand:
What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.
— 1 Corinthians 10:19–20 (ESV)
Paul reframes it. He doesn’t call them gods. He calls them demons. But he does acknowledge that they exist.
So whatever we call them (spiritual beings, elohim, gods, angels), the point is this. If they are in service of the one true God, drawing our worship to him, then they’re within God’s will. If they are influencing people to fall away from God, to practice injustice, and to worship other things, then they are demonic. Psalm 82 is the moment when God says, I’m still King over them. I will judge them as surely as I judge humanity when it practices injustice and falls away from the Lord.
Not One Among Many
When the Pharisees say, You’re claiming to be God, and Jesus quotes Psalm 82, I really believe he’s calling on this whole tradition. And he is doubling down on his claim, not backtracking.
Jesus is not saying, Oh, I wasn’t claiming to be divine. I was just claiming to be an enlightened human. He’s also not saying, I’m just one of the spiritual beings. You can honor me as much as you’d honor any of them.
Jesus is saying he is over all of those so-called gods. I and the Father are one. The Father is in me, and I am in the Father. By quoting Psalm 82, Jesus isn’t placing himself among the lesser gods. He is Yahweh himself, come back to execute judgment over the world and over the whole spiritual world as well. He puts himself higher than any other name.
His answer is: I’m Yahweh. I’m the one over the divine council. I’m not just one among many.
No One Can Snatch Them
What’s the payoff for us? As I sit with John 10, I see an even more personal application. Jesus’ claim to divinity isn’t abstract. He didn’t philosophize one day on a soapbox: Attention, everyone, I just want you to know that I am God; here is my ontological, epistemological proof of my existence… (I’m convinced many skeptics out there wish that’s exactly what Jesus had done!)
Instead, Jesus makes his claim to back up a concrete promise: I’m the good shepherd. My sheep hear my voice. No one can snatch them out of my hand. And to bolster that promise, he says, I and the Father are one.
This text isn’t about Jesus winning a zinger against the Pharisees. It’s for us. It’s a strong text for reflecting on the assurance of our salvation.
I know many Christians, myself included, go through seasons when the assurance of our faith is shaken. Maybe you’re in that season right now. You look around and wonder, Is this real? Am I really a child of God? Why am I still falling into these patterns? Why are these things happening? How can God love me? It’s very natural for Christians to go through seasons of doubting our assurance.
When I lack that assurance, I’m tempted to do one of two things.
First, I buckle down. I do some more good works so I feel worthy. Or I give a little extra to charity so God will put a gold star next to my name.
Second, I cut myself off from the body of Christ. I’m not being a very good Christian. I’d better not go to church today. That’s the worst thing I can do, because when I try to do faith by myself, in a vacuum, that’s when my faith really does start to crumble.
This text anchors our assurance in neither. It doesn’t rest on anything we do. It rests in Jesus Christ alone. So the way I find that assurance again runs right through the things I’m tempted to avoid: coming to the body, participating in worship and the sacraments, reading God’s word, and fixing my eyes on Jesus.
And this text says, You are my sheep. And if you are my sheep, nothing can take you out of my hand.
Jesus can say that because he is the highest authority. He is not just a good moral teacher or a guru who gives wise advice we’d be smart to follow. He is not one of the lesser gods with some influence but no real power. I am God himself. I and the Father are one. And when I say that you’re my child, nothing can separate you from that.
I’m starting to believe that Jesus’ citation of Psalm 82 may be even more for us than it was for the Pharisees. He is the God who sits above every other spiritual power, every lesser god and angel, above all the kings of the earth. He claims to be the highest authority in heaven and on earth. So when he says you’re in, you’re in.
Jesus alone is our source.
Come to the Table
Reflecting on this text all week, I’ve heard echoes of Paul’s great refrain in Romans 8:
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
— Romans 8:38–39 (ESV)
That’s what Jesus is inviting us into. If you are his sheep, if he has said, You are my child, then nothing can separate you.
And when Jesus wanted to give his children a parting gift, he did not write a lengthy systematic theology; he gave them a meal. When we gather around the communion table, we enter once again into a tangible means of grace for us today. Jesus sets the table and invites us to come.
If you’re struggling with a lack of assurance, bring that in prayer to the table the next time your community celebrates communion. Or today, spend time in God’s word with this prayer: Jesus, I need your assurance again. Not because of anything I’ve done, but because of who you are.
A Prayer to Close
Jesus, you are not just the King of my personal life. You’re not just the King of my heart. You are the King of all the nations, the King of our world, the King of the heavenly realm. You are the King of all.
Jesus, we turn to you. We trust in you. And when you say that we are your children, we know that nothing can change that.
Draw us to you. We love you, Lord.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
This week:
- Read John 10:22–42, then Psalm 82. Notice who stands in the council, who is judged, and who Jesus claims to be.
- Memorize John 10:27–28. Say it whenever you wonder whether you’re really his: no one will snatch them out of my hand.
- When your assurance is shaken, move toward God’s people instead of away. Come to worship, open his word, and come to the table.
- As our nation votes this week, pray Romans 8:38–39 for your own life and for our country. Whatever happens, Christ is King over all of it.
