Living in the Spirit Daily Devotional
Your guide to a daily walk with God.
Tuesday, 10 November 2026
Topic: Man or Messiah IV
Text: Mark 14:51-64
We will continue our series on defending the faith today, and we will look again at claims about Jesus’s divinity.
One of the most common attacks on our Lord Jesus concerns his divinity and the assertion that he never once claimed to be God, and that later Christian distortions led to the movement in which he is worshipped as God.
In fact, some strictly require texts in which Jesus said, “I am God” or “Worship me,” and will not accept anything short of that.
First, it is ridiculous to assert that unless Jesus explicitly said he is God or demanded worship, he is not divine, as that would even be counterproductive to some of his assignments.
A more logical approach would be to look at the places where Jesus claimed divinity, a few of which we will consider in today's devotional.
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In Matthew chapter 9, Jesus heals a paralytic and tells him that his sins are forgiven. The scribes rightly think he is blaspheming, because who else has the authority to forgive sins besides God?
Jesus responds by saying it would have been easier to say, “Rise up and walk,” but he forgave the man's sins so that they might know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins (Matthew 9:2-6).
In another passage from John, he says that Abraham rejoiced to see his day. When they question him about his age, he says, “before Abraham was, I AM”. He not only claims to transcend Abraham but also claims the divine name of God, and they try to stone him for the obvious blasphemy (John 8:56-59).
He claimed to be one with the Father (John 10:30), greater than the Lord's temple (Matthew 12:6), Lord over the Sabbath (Matthew 12:8), the resurrection (John 11:25), and the Judge of the world (John 5:21-23), and he accepted Thomas’s worship when Thomas said, “my Lord and my God” (John 20:27-29).
Beloved, if anyone asserts that Jesus never claimed to be God, the right question to ask is why he was condemned to death by the Jews in the high priest’s court before being handed over to the Romans.
In our Bible text, they bring several accusations against him but cannot find anything against him, and he answers nothing. Then they ask if he is the Messiah, and he responds:
“I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62).
Only Yahweh comes riding on the clouds (Psalm 104:3), and the prophets proclaim the Lord’s coming in judgement (Isaiah 19:1). Most importantly, the quotation is referenced directly from Daniel, where one like a Son of Man comes with the clouds of heaven to the Ancient of Days and is given an everlasting kingdom and dominion, so that all nations, peoples and tongues should worship him (Daniel 7:13–14).
This explains the high priest’s reaction: he tears his clothes at the magnitude of the blasphemy and closes the case because there is no need for any further evidence against him. He has to die according to their laws because he, being a man, has just claimed to be God (Mark 14:63-64).
God bless you.
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