Objection · Case 12 · Jehovah’s Witnesses
“Making himself equal with God” is the narrator’s report of the opponents’ inference. John doesn’t say Jesus claimed equality; he says the Jews took it that way.
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Response
The narrator’s voice in John 5:18 is not merely reporting. John explains why they sought to kill him with a because clause that presents the equality as the substance of Jesus’s claim, not a misunderstanding, and John’s Gospel opens by asserting the Word was God. Where John records a misunderstanding he usually marks it (2:21, 7:39); here he does not. The verses that follow, with Jesus claiming equal honor, confirm that John means what the opponents heard.
About this exhibit
This objection is to The Gospel of John, chapter 5, verses 18 to 23.
John reports that they sought to kill Jesus because he was “making himself equal with God.” In the next verses Jesus says he does whatever the Father does and should receive the same honor as the…
Under Claim 07: In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ hearers understood his calling God his own Father as a claim to equality with God, and Jesus did not take it back.